While in China, President Mao Tse Bama agreed to a climate change deal that is supposed to help secure Obama’s legacy.
Top administration officials had worked secretly for months to nail down a major climate change deal with China that could be the centerpiece of his first visit to the country in five years, and perhaps a key part of his presidential legacy.
With Obama, style always trumps substance and this is no different. China gives away nothing and the US bends over and takes it in the rear.
China and the United States agreed on Wednesday to new limits on carbon emissions starting in 2025, but the pledge by the world’s two biggest polluters appears to be more politically significant than substantive.
As China’s President Xi Jinping agreed to a date for peak CO2 emissions for the first time and also promised to raise the share of zero-carbon energy to 20 percent of the country’s total, President Barack Obama said the United States would cut its own emissions by more than a quarter by 2025.
At its best, the announcement threw the political weight of the world’s two biggest economies behind a new global climate pact to be negotiated in Paris next year.
But the United States has already pledged to cut its carbon emissions by 17 percent by 2020 and it’s not clear if the new proposals will pass a Republican-dominated Congress.
The agreement in essence allows China to continue to do as it is doing right now.
“It won’t be too difficult to achieve the 2030 goal, given that the government is already aggressively promoting renewable energy,” said Miao Tian, energy analyst with investment bank North Square Blue Oak. “These are not targets plucked from nowhere.”
Emissions were expected to peak by 2030 in China anyway:
BEIJING, April 29 (Reuters) – China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, could peak in emissions by 2030 or earlier, says a study from U.S. researchers who foresee Chinese demand for appliances, buildings and much industry reaching “saturation” around then.
The study by energy and emissions experts at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California adds to a growing body of studies that say China could reach its maximum output of carbon dioxide (CO2) within two decades.
So China gets to proceed along its current trajectory and Obama’s proposed actions will cost the US $479 billion. What was the point of this?
This is a back door assault on the US. Obama made a deal with the Chinese to basically cripple the US economy to allow him to appear to be the Abraham Lincoln of the environment. He’s promising that the US would curtail its “carbon pollution” by 25% when he’d already promised 17% by 2020. It’s another one of those dubious Executive Actions taken by Obama in lieu of proceeding down the Constitutional route. Given how stupid Obama supporters are they’ll probably laud this action. They also believe electricity comes out of hole in the wall and that quadrupling the price of electricity will be advantageous for the poor and the elderly.
Obama never looks as happy as when he is in the company of dictators and wearing dictator garb.
Bonus:
If you want to have a fun moment, ask an Obama voter to define “carbon pollution.” Then sit back and enjoy deer in the headlights appearance as well as the silence.
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Oh, lookie, Greggie has been over at Wikipedia.
@retire05, #47:
Nonsense. Bankruptcy actually has far less to do with value than with cash flow issues. Bankruptcy doesn’t necessarily mean that a company’s physical assets or money-making potential are worth less than the amount they can’t immediately come up with. Ask Mitt Romney. He made a fortune by understanding that point.
A company may go back to doing exactly what it was doing before bankruptcy. A good example might be Beacon Power, the company that developed the flywheel kinetic batteries. They received a $43 million federally guaranteed loan to build their first 20-megawatt storage installation in Stephentown, NY. They built it. They then went bankrupt. They defaulted on $14 million of their debt. That didn’t make them worthless or diminish the profit-making potential of the idea. They were quickly bought for $30.5 million by Rockland Capital, a private investment company. Rockland rehired Beacon Power’s employees and put them back to work on the same thing they were working on before. They provided the investment capital to build a second 20-megawatt facility in Pennsylvania. They’re both up and running.
None of this would have happened during a recession without the initial government loan.
@retire05, #51:
No, I simply stayed awake during my high school Physics class. As a result, I know how a lot of things in the world around me work. Knowing how things work makes the world more interesting.
@Greg:
I only had a couple of courses in Economics and Accounting, but I don’t remember that going into bankruptcy was a strategy that very many companies include in their goals to acheive riches and stability. Am I wrong Greg? Does the company need to get into bankruptcy sooner, or later?
And my company never told me that one of their goals was to get into bankruptcy so they could start making money.
Sounds like you had an interesting high school physics class, kinetic flywheels and all.
@Redteam, #54:
I like steam power and old gasoline engines. I have no clue why. I can remember being fascinated by steam locomotives when I was a child. That was about the time they were beginning to disappear. Maybe earlier technology is just easier to understand and appreciate when you look at it. I can figure out what the parts are doing. That sure isn’t true when I open the hood of a car these days.
@Greg: #50
It still takes more energy to speed up a flywheel than it gives back when producing electricity, thus the pollution isn’t reduced. The advantage is that with these types of peak demand sites, the power companies don’t have to build extra generating capacity for the peak demand. They “charge” them up at night, when demand is at it’s lowest, thus making their generating plants more efficiant.