Climate change policy

[Sachakins]

So your wrong again with your sweeping generalisation.

I would hardly say the UK is responsible for significant part of china's co2. In 2023 China exports to UK was about 2.5% of their gross exports.


China Exports to United Kingdom was US$77.91 Billion during 2023, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports/united-kingdom

In 2023, China exported approximately 3.38 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods. This indicated a decrease in export value of about 4.6 percent compared to the previous year.

 

[Chris152]

For my understanding - Chris would appear to be the type to want to retain statues (own your history to ensure it serves as a lesson to the future) and to ensure that we keep the explanations of where the money originated from to build the stately homes now under National Trust care (own your history to ensure it serves as a lesson to the future).

There is no virtue signalling involved if one would highlight the "downsides" of established history to teach to avoid similar behaviour in future - regardless of whether that history belongs to the individual's own country or cultural or citizenship history or history from elsewhere.

I've paid the bills the last 35 years as a historian, quite happy with your characterisation!

 

[Fergie 307]

We can play games with the figures but let's face it if I buy a product made in country X, then I can't really claim to have no responsibility for the pollution created by it's manufacture.

How far you take that is a matter for debate, but the basic idea seems pretty straightforward.

You could argue that the stuff would be made somewhere so what's the difference, but that isn't really true.

Why do we buy so much from China and more recently India? I would argue it's to do with price.
I am sure we have all bought various Chinese and Indian made stuff, when we might not have been able to justify buying the same thing made in the West, at a much greater price. I have certainly done this.

So we end up buying far more stuff than we might otherwise, and probably from places where it's manufacture creates considerably more pollution than it might if made here.

We really do have to take a measure of responsibility for this.

 

[Chris152]

We can play games with the figures but let's face it if I buy a product made in country X, then I can't really claim to have no responsibility for the pollution created by it's manufacture.

How far you take that is a matter for debate, but the basic idea seems pretty straightforward.

You could argue that the stuff would be made somewhere so what's the difference, but that isn't really true.

Why do we buy so much from China and more recently India? I would argue it's to do with price.
I am sure we have all bought various Chinese and Indian made stuff, when we might not have been able to justify buying the same thing made in the West, at a much greater price. I have certainly done this.

So we end up buying far more stuff than we might otherwise, and probably from places where it's manufacture creates considerably more pollution than it might if made here.

We really do have to take a measure of responsibility for this.

And that's not to mention the vast amounts of unnecessary waste products (presumably mostly imported) that we export for 'recycling' - which isn't recycling at all and ends up adding to the overall environmental problem.

 

[Jacob]

Ok…I’ll rephrase my comment. I think your post was utterly pointless.

I expect you must be going around pulling down statues and renaming street names to whitewash history. Keep on virtue-signalling if it gives you a cosy feeling.

Surely "virtue signalling" and "whitewashing' are more or less opposite?
@woodieallen sounds like a bit of a whitewasher to me - he wants to feel cosy about some of the squalid details of our history, by denying them.

 

[Jacob]

So your wrong again with your sweeping generalisation.

I would hardly say the UK is responsible for significant part of china's co2. In 2023 China exports to UK was about 2.5% of their gross exports.


China Exports to United Kingdom was US$77.91 Billion during 2023, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports/united-kingdom

In 2023, China exported approximately 3.38 trillion U.S. dollars worth of goods. This indicated a decrease in export value of about 4.6 percent compared to the previous year.

So what, either way?
The UK should be doing all in its power to achieve zero carbon, and as quickly as possible, without arguing about whose fault it is, or who should do most, or when, like kids in a playground.

 

[Sachakins]

So what, either way?
The UK should be doing all in its power to achieve zero carbon, and as quickly as possible, without arguing about whose fault it is, or who should do most, or when, like kids in a playground.

It's about clarity, you happily jump on others for the same generalisations.

 

[Croolis]

China puts out something like a third of global CO2.

Should the other two thirds each, individually, not do anything because, individually, they don't make up all of the two thirds?

By following the stupid logic of some of the stupid arguments here, apparently China shouldn't bother because the other two thirds of the world aren't bothering. I mean, if the other two thirds don't bother there's no point China bothering, is there? I mean, it's two thirds so just doing one third is pointless.

We might as well all not bother then, right?

What a ******** line of thought. It's actually more important that dozens of smaller outputters unilaterally reduce their emissions because it's far more difficult to organise all of them into doing it.

In case you don't understand me, I'll spell it out again: we have to unilaterally reduce our emissions or it doesn't matter if China reduces their emissions. This is true of every country. And if you wait for every country to demonstrate they are doing so, it won't happen. So we have to do it unilaterally.

Jesus, some people are thick.

 

[Sachakins]

Acting on emissions, by carbon reduction is a necessity, this net zero emission game is a load of garbage and will achieve very little.

I don't disagree that inaction is acceptable. What I don't agree with is that the current COP29 is more about how much the developed nations should give to the undeveloped nations to reduce their move to high emmision production. And that these nations are just demanding more and more money, holding developed nations to ransom in the greed game.

Why don't these developed nations just abandon this money tree the undeveloped nations are trying to ransack.

Better channel this money into their own countries to accelerate carbon reduction for their own nation.

This is the reality of the call to act Unilaterally, so be aware of what you wish for.

Personally I'd love to see the UK focus 100% on their emission reductions, acting Unilaterally as you want. BUT, only way to do this is pull out of COP and not pay into the fund for others.

You can't have it both ways, we just don't have that level of financial ability.

 

[Croolis]

The honest truth is, I don't know much about details of COP and as I'm pretty cynical I don't have much faith in it. I have no doubt poorer countries will just try and take advantage and you may well be right that it may be better to not waste money on them. But maybe not, dunno.

But I think net zero is a good aspiration, and probably the right approach is to strive for it and water it down as we utterly fail to achieve it, because any slow down in environmental damage is a gain and we need hard targets for motivation.

As I've said before I don't expect any of it to work. I have a keen interest in naval history, and I've often read (Patrick O'Brian loves this) that mariners from the age of sail, as soon as they're convinced the ship's going down and taking them with it, break into the liquor store and just get drunk. That's no way to behave IMHO.