Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington and Utah signed an agreement with the western provinces of Canada today to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent over the next twelve years. New Jersey and Florida have committed to even stronger cuts over the long term – 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction over the next four decades.
Yet, the national government of the United States of America is unwilling to make such a commitment. Why?
George W. Bush and the Republican Party justify their inaction by saying that taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would damage the economy. Today’s action by the the western governments of the United States and Canada shows that excuse to be without merit. If Arizona, British Columbia, California, Manitoba, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington and Utah can afford to cut greenhouse gas emissions, then so can the rest of the United States and Canada.
These state-level cuts are not sufficient to defeat global warming, but they are a needed start. The time for excuses is over.
(Source: Reuters, August 22, 2007)
i, for one, am glad that the states are starting to think for themselves since we all know the federal government is gone (at least under Bush and the neocons).
Huh. This is good…but is it legal for US states to sign treaties with foreign governments? You’d think that’d be one of the powers reserved for the federal government.
Cities like Buffalo-Toronto are basically one urban area even though separated by an international border. when it comes to planning issues, they do need to have some regional cooperation.
This a press release – You guys are getting all teary-eyed over a press release?
Have you read the agreement? What happens if the goals are not met by deadline – all carbon emitting industries have to be shut down?
Think about it: They agreed to cut carbon emissions levels to 15% below the 2005 levels by 2020. In order to do that, first they have to stop the current increas of carbon emissions levels. In other word, there has to be a year with the increase is unchanged from the year before.
Then, they have to start decreasing the emissions levels.
We’ll call 2005 as “Year Zero” YZ
And the Target Level (TL) = 85% of YZ emissions
2006 and 2007 have already had increases. Even if they were say, 5% from year to year, that means the level in 2007 will be 110.25 percent above those of YZ, which means a net cut of almost 23% from today’s level to reach TL.
2008 better be equal to 2007, or we’ll have another increase. But let’s pretend it’s only 4%. That still leaves a net increase of 114.66% over year zero, which requires nearly 26% decrease from the 2008 current level to reach TL.
What about 2009? Increase or leveling off? I’ll bet for increase, but make it only 3% from the previous year. Where are we now? 118% above YZ and 28% above TL.
2010? I still vote for an increase, but only 2%. Now 120.46% above YZ and 29% above TL.
Let’s pretend 2011 is the level year: No increase in emissions. Next year we can start looking at decreases. But what does this mean? It means that even in spite of consumption increases, all the new amounts of consumption added to the system resulted in a net increase of zero from the year before.
Wrap your head around that for a minute. The US States listed in the press release are all increasing in population at rates of about 5% per year. Through some magic or magical-seeming technology, now those folks coming on the grid in 2011 are not adding one drop of Carbon emissions to the system. For that to be true, then all the people on the grid in 2010 would have to decrease their share of the emissions by just under 5% in 2011.
Then in 2012, even though there are another 5% more people on the grid, the rate has to start going down in order for us to meet TL by 2020 –We’ve only got 9 years left and 29% of our 2011 levels have to be shed to meet out goal.
In order to meet the goal in that amount of time, we need to have an annual net decrease of about 3.5% Which means the people on the grid in 2010 have to not only cut their emissions by just under 5% to make up for the new folks, but they will have to cut an additional 3% cut needed by the “2010-ers†to contribute to the overall decrease.
The end result is that the people on the gird in the western States today will have to cut their personal contribution to overall emissions by nearly 60% of their current levels to account for their contribution to the end level at 85% of 2005 values as well as the increase in population.
Me and my fellow Western States residents will have to produce 60% less carbon emissions than we do now.
Spanky,
This agreement not perfection. It’s one step toward something better, one step more than George W. Bush is taking us as a nation. The point is that Bush isn’t even getting us as far as these states.
Who got teary-eyed?
Gosh. You guys have such poor reading comprehension skills.
What does the agreement actually -do-?
If they don’t have a plan, then it’s just so much wagging of jaw.
15% below levels from two years ago seems like a little bit, but I tried to show, while being conservative on the growth rates and optimistic on the rates of cutting back on emissions, that the real net goal is and average of 60% below current levels for -each- person now in Washington, California, and the rest.
What are they going to DO to make it happen that way? Rely on your faith?
I’m not sure what making up a bunch of numbers about population and emissions is supposed to prove. And why assume they will both go up? Emissions, both total emissions and per capita emissions have decreased in some recent decades. What effect will the current changes in immigration law enforcement have on population?
A cursory reading of the article linked to shows the answer to your question is towards the bottom of the first page:
Spanky, you seem to be hyperventilating at the keyboard.