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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 03 2019, @04:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the on-the-road-again dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Carbon-heavy development in countries part of China's Belt and Road Initiative could render the Paris climate goals unreachable, according to a new analysis on the gargantuan global infrastructure project released Monday.

The massive network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks spanning Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe will see trillions invested in new infrastructure across 126 countries.

While the Chinese state is putting up a significant part of the cash, the project will also see other national and private-sector investment, and opponents warn of its devastating environmental impact.

An analysis of the possible carbon footprint of infrastructure development in Belt and Road (BRI) countries said there was a significant risk of the initiative alone producing enough greenhouse gas emissions to derail the Paris climate goals.

The 2015 accord enjoins nations to cap temperature rises to "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 Farenheit) above pre-industrial levels.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Coward, Anonymous on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:30AM (13 children)

    by Coward, Anonymous (7017) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:30AM (#889128) Journal

    Of course developing countries will massively increase CO2 output, and there are a lot of developing countries. If warming stays below 2 C, it will be because the climate models are wrong, not because people reduced CO2 emissions.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:54AM (11 children)

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday September 03 2019, @06:54AM (#889135) Journal

    The response needs to be dump money into energy technologies that would often be superior to fossil fuels and reduce emissions, i.e. solar and nuclear fusion.

    If the problem persists, get ready for stratospheric aerosol injections [wikipedia.org] or objects in orbit dimming the planet.

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    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:25AM (3 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:25AM (#889138) Journal

      If the problem persists, get ready for stratospheric aerosol injections [wikipedia.org] or objects in orbit dimming the planet.

      Won't happen, too expensive on the "by 2050" horizon and riskier than the problem is meant to solve.

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    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:43AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:43AM (#889140)

      Im sure there are already trials going on but i think if this death cult of climate psychos really does try to force everyone to deal with some large scale cooling project there will be huge pushback. It is just such an obviously retarded idea, well beyond most idiotic socialist plans that inevitably fail terribly for obvious reasons.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:56AM (4 children)

        by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:56AM (#889142) Journal

        If it wasn't clear, I want solar and fusion to end up cheaper than everything else, so the market just switches to them and electric cars. No carbon credits necessary, or subsidies. Money is already being dumped, but maybe in the wrong places, such as ITER.

        The stratospheric injection could be a very cheap way of countering warming. Like millions or billions instead of trillions of $.

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        • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:28AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 03 2019, @10:28AM (#889158) Journal

          Money is already being dumped, but maybe in the wrong places, such as ITER.

          RAST [wikipedia.org] borrowed from ITER and reached 100MK [soylentnews.org] this year.
          As a member of ITER consortium, China's EAST was designed to test elements that will make back into the ITER [wikipedia.org].

          At $20B [wikipedia.org] since 1985, with costs split between 8 parties, is certainly way cheaper than the inflation adjusted average yearly budget for NASA ($22.03 billion) [wikipedia.org]

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        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @02:55PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 03 2019, @02:55PM (#889198)

          The stratospheric injection could be a very cheap way of countering warming. Like millions or billions instead of trillions of $.

          No, this is literally a civilization destroying idea. The cost of doing something like this is infinite. They want to lower the temperature 2 degrees for pretty much no reason, then another cold period will naturally happen and everyone will be far worse off.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday September 03 2019, @11:37PM (1 child)

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday September 03 2019, @11:37PM (#889319)

          No carbon credits necessary, or subsidies.

          Dropping the massive coal and oil subsidies that a lot of countries insist on keeping would help solar and wind a lot.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday September 03 2019, @11:45PM

            by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday September 03 2019, @11:45PM (#889321) Journal

            I obviously agree. But ideally, renewables should be more cost effective than coal, natural gas, etc. even without subsidies, which will lead to rapid adoption.

            Solar power will reach $1 per watt by 2020 [nextbigfuture.com]

            This week energy forecaster GTM Research predicted that the price of building big solar-power farms will drop below $1 a watt by 2020. That’s a big deal because it’s seen as the threshold below which building solar power arrays becomes competitive, without subsidies, with the cost of fossil-fuel plants. It’s also the target set in 2011 by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative.

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    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:47AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 03 2019, @08:47AM (#889150) Journal

      objects in orbit dimming the planet.

      You do realize that putting our dimmest objects in orbit, would result in the asphyxiation of most of our democrats? I mean, we certainly can't afford separate life support systems for each of them!

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:22PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 03 2019, @07:22PM (#889261) Journal

    Despite the continued optimists, I think that we are currently already committed to a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees.

    That said, it's hard to object to China's developing infrastructure when Trump has just removed limits on methane. I wish they would find a less polluting infrastructure, but certainly the US doesn't have any room to talk.

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