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posted by on Saturday June 03 2017, @06:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the balance-shifting dept.

The Guardian reports:

The European Union has rejected Donald Trump's offer to renegotiate the Paris climate agreement and pledged instead to bypass Washington to work with US business leaders and state governors to implement the historic accord's commitments.

Less than 24 hours after the US president announced his decision to withdraw from the 2015 agreement and strike a new, less ambitious deal with the rest of the world, Brussels declared its outright refusal to engage in such talks.

EU officials will instead cut out the White House to deal directly with the US states and major corporations, many of whom have already pledged to live by the terms forged in Paris.

China vows to partner with the EU on clean energy.

But Beijing and Brussels have been preparing to announce their intention to accelerate joint efforts to reduce global carbon emissions.

According to a statement being prepared before an EU-China summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, the new alliance will say they are determined to "lead the energy transition" toward a low-carbon economy.

The EU's climate commissioner, Miguel Arias CaƱete, told the Guardian: "The EU and China are joining forces to forge ahead on the implementation of the Paris agreement and accelerate the global transition to clean energy."

Let's not wait for the guy with the awkward handshake anymore.

That's the gist of documents, seen by the Financial Times*, about the upcoming EU-China summit this Friday in Brussels.

Cooperation on the deployment of electric cars, energy efficiency labelling, and scientific research into green innovation. Further increasing the share of renewable energy, by boosting interconnected power networks. Setting up a scheme for emissions trading in China, with an eye of coupling that scheme to the pioneering EU version. Money to fund developing countries' climate plans.

"The increasing impacts of climate change require a decisive response", the joint statement reads,"Tackling climate change and reforming our energy systems are significant drivers of job creation, investment opportunities and economic growth."

* EU and China strengthen climate ties to counter US retreat. Financial Times, Wednesday May 31, 2017. [Paywalled]


Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2

 
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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @10:33AM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @10:33AM (#519792)

    Trump didn't say he wanted a less ambitious agreement. He said he wanted one that's better for the US. I see his point. If you look at the CO2 numbers, any reduction by the US will be a drop in the bucket compared to increases by China and India, whose emissions growth is largely unaffected by Paris. Why should the US voluntarily put on an economic straight jacket? That kind of regulation is anathema to the GOP, and US emissions have been declining anyway.

    By signing these non-treaty agreements without sufficient political backing, both Clinton in Kyoto and Obama in Paris have made the US look bad.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by zocalo on Saturday June 03 2017, @11:47AM (5 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Saturday June 03 2017, @11:47AM (#519811)

    If you look at the CO2 numbers, any reduction by the US will be a drop in the bucket compared to increases by China and India, whose emissions growth is largely unaffected by Paris.

    Not necessarily [google.co.uk], at least based on per capita figures which is probably the fairest comparative assessment available at the link. China is putting a huge amount of effort into cleaning up its act - especially in solar and hydro - and is widely expected to start reducing its emissions soon, if it hasn't actually done so already - there's a long way to go, but they're committed to getting there, and even more so now. India is also investing heavily in clean energy - mostly solar - and has already flatlined its emissions in the most recent data. The US meanwhile, was already trending sharply downwards, and has been since 2007 - true, it's not enough to wipe out the combined figures of the much larger populations of China and India, but every little bit helps, especially if China and India can sustain some significant reductions as they continue to transition away from carbon fuels.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 1, Troll) by Nuke on Saturday June 03 2017, @11:59AM (1 child)

      by Nuke (3162) on Saturday June 03 2017, @11:59AM (#519816)

      The most effective way that China and India could reduce their emissions is to reduce their populations.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:06AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 04 2017, @09:06AM (#520152)

        Coming from someone with your handle, that statement seems even more unsettling than usual.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:42PM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday June 03 2017, @01:42PM (#519846) Journal

      and is widely expected to start reducing its emissions soon

      It's interesting how insistent people are on portraying a short trend as a long term one. This could be a real, long term change in Chinese policy, but I'll believe it in ten years, maybe five, if it's a really big drop. Right now, however China is replacing old coal power with new because their levels of pollution threaten the government's control of society. At some point, they'll run out of inefficient, high polluting old plants to replace. Then I think we'll see a resumption of their CO2 emissions growth.

      • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:22PM (1 child)

        by zocalo (302) on Saturday June 03 2017, @02:22PM (#519864)
        Absolutely agree that the jury is still out on China - and on India too for that matter. Sure, they might be politically committed and investing heavily *now*, which is what lies behind that expectation, but this time last year so was the US and look how that panned out (I suspect Trump's hopes of changing the course of industry are about as realistic of Cnut's with the tide though). Five years should be enough to see whether this is the start of a longer term trend for the Chinese though; that'll put them into the middle of next Five Year Plan, which will provide a much better idea of just how committed they are. They certainly want to make the bulk of the world's solar panels, but if they end up exporting most of them rather than using them for domestic power generation projects (or even private domestic installations) then they'll definitely hit a wall once they run out of old-style coal plants to replace.
        --
        UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:09PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 03 2017, @04:09PM (#519894)

          Keep in mind that official statistics coming out of China are also not trustworthy. AFAIK there are no independent monitors, which is another reason the Paris Agreement was bad for the US.