US/China Climate Change Deal: Environmental Planning?

I read with interest today the news about the China/USA agreement to curb carbon emissions in hopes of reducing climate change and supporting more sustainable environment.  I was excited.  It is always good to read about any country willing to voluntarily reduce its carbon emissions. 

Then I read the details.

So the US is going to curb its emissions by 26% to 28% in 2025, down from its 2005 levels.  What happened to the 2030 challenge?  At this rate, will we achieve carbon neutrality by 2100? Or never?  Not until the last drop of oil and last lump of coal is burned into the atmosphere I guess.  Setting goals so low is really discouraging.  The science does not support such limited action.  And of course the political forces that benefit from a fossil fuel based economy are already lining up to kill even this small initiative.  I heard them use the term “war on coal” again today.   Sort of like when the Federal government (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) and organizations like the American Cancer Society started the “war on Cancer” (1971) and big business and parts of the government supported the tobacco industry as it hooked us in and killed us off as fast as it could?   Reducing carbon emissions won’t hurt the economy.  Business as usual will.

And China is going to “stop its emissions from growing” by 2030.  Really?  So China is planning to increase its emissions every year for the next 16 years before it starts reducing them?  How is that a reduction?  China completes a new coal burning electrical plant every 8-10 days.  And their policy of unlimited growth is not sustainable.  The planet simply can’t take it.  One positive component of the agreement is that China will be introducing more “non-fossil fuel” energy sources into its production.  But they include Nuclear in that category, along with renewables.  Luckily economic growth in China is slowing. 

Many Countries in Europe, Great Britain and Scandinavia have much more aggressive goals.  They are out ahead of climate change and their economies and citizens are benefiting from that.  Sweden has a goal to be carbon neutral by 2016!  Housing in Britain will need to be net zero energy in the same time frame.  Even here in the US, solar power is now cost neutral compared with fossil fuel base electric from the utility monopolies.  And it is projected that solar power will cost neutral in 47 states by 2016. 

So it seems business (mostly) as usual is still the plan of action for decades if not a century to come.  Luckily, complex systems, such as the ecological system of the planet can self-regulate and adapt.  If it needs to, it will disrupt the economy, and eventually the human population.  (It already has.  Most of us are just in an economic position to insulate ourselves from the suffering so far) Its complex, interrelated systems will adapt and adjust, and change as needed.  Those adjustments won’t care about what happens to humans on the planet.   

So as I said in a previous blog: (from the Katherine Hayhoe presentation on 10/22/2014, at the USGBC GreenBuild Conference in New Orleans)

We are facing 3 choices when it comes to climate change

1. Mitigate - reduce emissions

2. Adapt- to the changes (our current infrastructure cannot cope with changes to our climate)

3. Suffer- some suffering is inevitable, how much is our choice

So far it looks like we (the US and China, who account for 45% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions) will take a gentle, easy, slow road on 1 and 2.   Is option 3 going to be the “winning” strategy?  Is that really what our leaders want?  I truly hope not.  Can we adapt and change without a full blown climate crisis?  It does not look good.

Here is a helpful checklist that will help you do your part.

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