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Thread: USA drops CO2 levels in 2019

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    USA drops CO2 levels in 2019

    People said that when we pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord that this was a loss for the world. Many Trump supporters pointed out President Trump's point, which was that the PCA was an economic agreement disguised as a climate agreement. There was no legally binding aspect to the CO2 goals, but yet some parts like the USA giving money to other countries would harm us. Furthermore, the countries that actually followed the PCA would be harming their economy while the ones who didn't would be gaining economic advantages. That's a naive way to create an international agreement. But, people said without the PCA we would release CO2 like crazy. So where are we now?

    Well, in President Trump's 1st year (2016), depending on what figure you use, we cut CO2 emissions from 2015 about 1.9%. In 2017, they went down about 0.8% from 2016. In 2018, people panicked because they went up around 2.7%.[1] People said, "SEE! ORANGE MAN BAD!" But what about in 2019?[2] Suddenly we're projected to be down 1.7%. And what are the projections for next year: CO2 emissions are projected to go down again.[3]

    But wait a minute, we're not in the PCA. I thought that was supposed to mean we were going to pollute more. That doesn't seem to be happening. In fact, we are doing a good job reducing our carbon emissions. We now have either two options: We can continue to believe that leaving the PCA was a bad idea that will inevitably lead to more pollution or our second option is to consider that maybe President Trump was right; maybe the PCA really was an economic deal disguised as a climate deal and we can lower our emissions without being in the PCA. In fact, leaving the PCA might have actually been beneficial to us in fighting climate change.

    NOTE: GHG Emissions increased 1.3% from 1990-2017, but are down 12.1% from the 2007 peak.[4]


    Sources:
    [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ons-from-1999/
    [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/03/c...emissions.html
    [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38133
    [4] https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/
    Last edited by atheist4thecause; 12-21-2019 at 12:03 AM.

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    From the EIA link in the OP:

    Both 2019 and 2020 are expected to have milder weather than 2018, resulting in fewer HDDs (milder winters) and fewer CDDs (milder summers) and, consequently, less energy consumption. However, even with declines in emissions over the next two years, energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 and 2020 are still projected to be higher than 2017 levels.
    So, it's not a matter of the US "cutting" emissions - it's a matter of the weather being milder, which resulted in a reduction of carbon fuel usage.

    Of course it makes good sense to reduce pollution anywhere we can, but carbon emission measurements are mainly a guess, because they are highly localized, just as the smog over LA is not the same as the clean air over my home out in the country.

    I don't put a lot of stock into the statistical measurements of CO2, CH4, and N20, but what does strike me from the above quote is that not only was 2019 milder, 2020 is predicted to be milder as well. We've been warned that climate change will herald in stronger storms and fiercer weather, which makes a two-year hiatus slightly interesting.

    Are our emissions truly lower? Probably, because we're implementing numerous methods of producing cleaner fossil fuels and in the process, emissions are reduced.

    But, hoaxes like wind energy are not making a difference.
    ""A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul" ~George Bernard Shaw

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