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Comment by rb808 | Hacker News Reader

The Paris Agreement is a joke. Most countries just signed it then did what they wanted any way. Yes it would be better PR if US signed it and ignored it, but it wouldn't make any difference. https://www.nature.com/news/prove-paris-was-more-than-paper-...

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The Paris Agreement is a joke also because there was no universal obligation it imposed. Consider, for instance, the promise China made to stop increasing emissions by 2030. You read that right, _stop increasing_. Not reduce at all. Also, that's about when economists figured emissions would naturally stop increasing in any case. A bunch of nations got together, asked everyone to send in a promise, stapled them all together, and called it a "climate accord".

And yet somehow China is beating everyone else https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-climatechange-carbo...

Funny how even a partially planned economy is more effective.

Don't be tricked by misleading measurement conditions. Their total carbon emissions have been increasing at an explosive rate.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/World_fo...

Of course they've been going up, but per capita they might reach equilibrium before NA levels.

Europe is doing quite well on that chart.

[0] https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

The glaciers don't care about per-capita.

Not true, It's slippery language (and unauditable Chinese press statements). So if you can spot it!

"China, the world’s biggest energy consumer, cut its 2005 carbon intensity level, or the amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide it produces per unit of economic growth, by 46 percent in 2017, Xie told a forum in Shanghai"

Everyone's emissions are down due to manufacturing slowdowns globally. If you're willing to select a narrow set of data points as this article does, then you can draw any conclusion you want.

If the press paid attention to this, I think we'd have a chance at an agreement that did something.

Instead, it's like a participation trophy for politicians.

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