Krugman: Empire of Carbon

I have seen the future, and it won’t work.

These should be hopeful times for environmentalists. Junk science no longer rules in Washington. President Obama has spoken forcefully about the need to take action on climate change; the people I talk to are increasingly optimistic that Congress will soon establish a cap-and-trade system that limits emissions of greenhouse gases, with the limits growing steadily tighter over time. And once America acts, we can expect much of the world to follow our lead.

But that still leaves the problem of China, where I have been for most of the last week.

Like every visitor to China, I was awed by the scale of the country’s development. Even the annoying aspects — much of my time was spent viewing the Great Wall of Traffic — are byproducts of the nation’s economic success.

But China cannot continue along its current path because the planet can’t handle the strain.

The scientific consensus on prospects for global warming has become much more pessimistic over the last few years. Indeed, the latest projections from reputable climate scientists border on the apocalyptic. Why? Because the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios.

And the growth of emissions from China — already the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide — is one main reason for this new pessimism.

China’s emissions, which come largely from its coal-burning electricity plants, doubled between 1996 and 2006. That was a much faster pace of growth than in the previous decade. And the trend seems set to continue: In January, China announced that it plans to continue its reliance on coal as its main energy source and that to feed its economic growth it will increase coal production 30 percent by 2015. That’s a decision that, all by itself, will swamp any emission reductions elsewhere.

So what is to be done about the China problem?

Nothing, say the Chinese.

Each time I raised the issue during my visit, I was met with outraged declarations that it was unfair to expect China to limit its use of fossil fuels. After all, they declared, the West faced no similar constraints during its development; while China may be the world’s largest source of carbon-dioxide emissions, its per-capita emissions are still far below American levels; and anyway, the great bulk of the global warming that has already happened is due not to China but to the past carbon emissions of today’s wealthy nations.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=1

On one hand, it feels so good to have company like Krugman. Yet on the other, I guess it's hard to explain. It's just too down to even post. God damnit.

Methane out gassing from melting permafrost is another major contributor to atmospheric carbon growth. Methane traps about 20 time the heat of C02 or CO ... and good lord they have found methane plumes in Arctic waters so it is not just the thawing tundra ...

Even if China and America were to go zero emissions tomorrow, those natural processes that have been triggered by human activity would continue to run. This freight train is rolling down hill, gathering speed, and there are no brakes.

So now the question morphs from "how do we stop it" to "how do we survive it" ... How do we sustain a high energy technology civilization and a planetary population of 6 billion during a period of rapid climate change and ecosystem collapse? I don't know the answer to that one.

But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer. Of course, we won't find it if policy makers and scientists continue to be wrapped in the by now useless debate proposed by the climate change deniers. In this context, the Republicans have become dangerously irrelevant.

Trav

BEIJING—China said Thursday it was willing to work with the United States on addressing climate change, saying such efforts were vital to fighting global warming.

“Strengthening cooperation on climate change is in the interest of the two countries and conducive to our two nations contributing to international climate change cooperation,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

“We would like to work with the US to make concrete progress on this issue.”

Jiang was speaking ahead of a visit to China beginning Friday by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is on her first overseas trip since taking on the role.

Clinton has said closer ties with China on fighting climate change was one of her priorities on her tree-day trip, during which she will meet President Hu Jintao.

Todd Stern, Clinton’s special envoy on climate change and a veteran negotiator on global warming, is accompanying her.

China and the United States are the world’s two largest emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, and they have traded accusations in recent years on who should shoulder the responsibility for the problem.

But US President Barack Obama has pledged to shred the climate policies of his predecessor George W. Bush and has vowed to lead an international fight against global warming.

In 2001, Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol that sought to forge a global deal on fighting climate change, with his administration blaming the pull-out on the fact developing nations such as China did not have to commit to emission cuts.

Cooperation between the two giants is essential for the success of negotiations to be held in Copenhagen in December on a new global pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012, Greenpeace China said.

“Strong leadership from the US and China, acting together, is essential to reaching an agreement in Copenhagen,” the environmental group said in an open letter released Thursday to Clinton and her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.

“We urge China and the US to explore deeper collaboration between their energy efficiency and renewable energy industries, to create a new development model that meets energy demands… and generates millions of green jobs without sacrificing human health or the environment.

http://www.grist.org/article/China23/

Nothing, say the Chinese.