My country is going to commit economic suicide ...

[HoracioDos]

You should look to keep your ass dry before looking to keep it warm.

With all due respect. Will it make any difference? China, India, USA, Russia won't pay you all the conversion costs and also won't reduce emissions in the short and midterm. I guess it's a lost battle. I think that your politicians should start thinking about which country they would like to invade.

[nctnico]

My country is going to commit economic suicide ...

Half of the land in your country is located under the sea level.
The sea rise coming from the greenhouse gas emissions will threaten all the dams that keep the seawater out.

The dams are being raised to keep track of the rising sea level as part of regular schedule so no worries here. The NL already has the infrastructure and knowledge to keep the water out. Other places without suhc infrastructure will run into trouble. Think about cities like Helsinki or New York. https://ny.curbed.com/2017/12/29/16830590/nyc-rising-sea-level-visuals-climate-central

[innkeeper]

Do I understand the more advanced countries of the world took the lead in cleaning up emissions, to reduce pollution and more recently reduce the human component to the changing climate (walking the political tightrope with that statement)

but now, emissions are quite low in those countries. however in some 3rd world countries and countries like China are still producing high emissions, also most sea-going vessels are producing high emissions.

why are the countries who are in the lead in cleaning up emissions still beating themselves up trying to make emissions even lower at great personal cost, instead of putting serious pressure on those countries who have not yet caught up to fix their issues, and fix the horrid emissions from sea-going vessels?

where is common sense...

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

In the US since 1975 cars have pcv, egr, catalytic converter, carbon canister, exhaust air injection, and ran on unleaded fuel. Most europeans believe the US doesn't give a damn about air pollution, but none of these things have been mandatory in Europe until decades later.

[Marco]

Continuously adjusting your plan according to what's actually happening is a sure way of getting the plan right every time. Isn't that great?

Then you don't make laws with hard goals, once those are on the books they take on a life of their own. Our government has already been sued for not meeting targets on particle emissions and lost the lawsuit, the same would happen with this. If our government puts "economic suicide in 2030" in a law then a judge will say in 2030, "pull the trigger". There will be probably some compromise by then ... lets just amputate some limbs.

The correct way to do this is at the EU level, so we don't weaken our relative competitiveness with our main trading partners.

PS. hope the Dutch here have a good grasp of German ... that's where all our industry is going to go.

[f4eru]

so no worries here

Yeah.
People living downstream huge water dams also say they don't worry.
It's always properly maintained, no worries.

[Kjelt]

why are the countries who are in the lead in cleaning up emissions still beating themselves up trying to make emissions even lower at great personal cost, instead of putting serious pressure on those countries who have not yet caught up to fix their issues, and fix the horrid emissions from sea-going vessels?
where is common sense...

Perhaps Because you can only change yourself not someone else esp. not with pressure.
It should be their decision, the best one can do is organize treaties and give the good example.
Also look at the washmachine youtube video often quoted on this forum, who are we to say they can't have a washing machine?
Ships and airplanes are riddles to me to , they don't pay tax on their fuel so it looks like all countries are doing nothing about it.

[innkeeper]

@Kjelt
point taken.

but still, there has to be a point of diminishing returns, a point at which the remaining pollution from those who are not cooperating far exceeds any significant further impact you can make but further restricting your own emissions.

I'm not saying to stop the advancements. but its silly to self-impose economic hardships to not do so when there are much larger pollution contributors that could be dealt with globally.

[nctnico]

so no worries here

Yeah.
People living downstream huge water dams also say they don't worry.
It's always properly maintained, no worries.

Perhaps you should visit the Netherlands and study how the infrastructure of dams and canals are organised. 4 centuries of development went into that. Rising sea levels are going to create a lot of jobs in the NL.

[Kleinstein]

For the climate change CO2 is the main factor. Short term methane is also a factor - way more effect per volume, but it does not last that long. For the greenhouse effect water is also important, but water is essentially in it's natural concentration and is only effected indirectly, mainly via temperature.  Other pollutants (e.g. NOx, CO, SO2) are more short term and more local.

SO2 is actually counteracting global warming, but only on a short time scale. So no reason to complain about China and India emitting so much SO2 - it kills there trees and makes them sick. This also a reason why China is doing a lot to make at least their coal cleaner.

When is comes to CO2 emissions China is doing a lot - though still at a rather low level of emission per capita. The emissions are still going up with economic growth, but rather slow and chances are they will go down.  China also did a great job in limiting the population growth.  I think limiting population growth is also important - not just in the 3rd world but also in the US, south America and the middle east.

It is a problem that the US is currently ignoring global warming, but chances are they will change there mind if the effects gets more obvious and international pressure will rise.  However the problem is that adapting late will be really hard - up to the point of a total economic disaster. There is a chance in adapting early as this would help your economy to be ahead. So the restrictions may not be such a bad economic idea, more like an investment in future technology.

No tax on air- and marine- fuel is due to old international treaties. A logical point would be to change this, but this is slow.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

It makes me cringe when I hear normal people say that the solution for a technical problem is moar taxes. I can understand the establishment saying that.

[Kjelt]

but still, there has to be a point of diminishing returns, a point at which the remaining pollution from those who are not cooperating far exceeds any significant further impact you can make but further restricting your own emissions.

I'm not saying to stop the advancements. but its silly to self-impose economic hardships to not do so when there are much larger pollution contributors that could be dealt with globally.

Yes I agree that it can not only be done by one quarter of the countries while the rest get free play.
But remember that the situation we are now in was caused by our wealthy nations and not the new countries. We got wealthy because we ignored the environment. I remember well that in the 50s and 60s the chemical companies were dumping their toxic waste in the rivers and sea. The Rhine was completely dead, no fish no plant due to the german Ruhr gebiet dumping. Now there are fish and plants and humans are allowed to swim again except for the heavy currents. So you can also say why do our industries now clean up their waste since it costs a lot of money? Be ause we had a problem with it ourselves! Now the CO2 is no different except it is not a local river it is a global space. We put so much CO2 in it the last decades we owe it to the other nations to start reducing it, but that is just my opinion.

[Marco]

Lets try to keep a functioning civilization in the process. Technology caused it and technology will have to solve it ... a country with a collapsed economy doesn't do much R&D.

[SiliconWizard]

PS. hope the Dutch here have a good grasp of German ... that's where all our industry is going to go.

Yeah: this is where most of Europe's industry has gone already anyway.

[schmitt trigger]

so no worries here

Yeah.
People living downstream huge water dams also say they don't worry.
It's always properly maintained, no worries.

Perhaps you should visit the Netherlands and study how the infrastructure of dams and canals are organised. 4 centuries of development went into that. Rising sea levels are going to create a lot of jobs in the NL.

And not only for Dutch projects, but for cities World wide.

The Dutch have amassed an impressive amount of experience and technology which they will be able to sell to New York, Shanghai, Singapore, Dubai, Miami et al.

Good paying jobs ahead!

[Kjelt]

PS. hope the Dutch here have a good grasp of German ... that's where all our industry is going to go.

Yeah: this is where most of Europe's industry has gone already anyway.

Perhaps because we in NL and DE didn't have (or hardly) wage rises the last 7 years and we already passed legislation to retire at 67-68 while the french are still striking to retire at 55-60. Not that we are happy with it but we see the necessity. The result is that finally now our economy is growing again.  You're country has some really great industries with a lot of potential profit but should make the transition to the 21st century today rather than tomorrow. Not nice to hear and Macron is doing his best but if the people don't change their mindset they mess it up for next generations.

[f4eru]

we already passed legislation to retire at 67-68 while the french are still striking to retire at 55-60. Not that we are happy with it but we see the necessity

Nope.
Exponentially growing automation means less need for workers in general.
This means that the smaller amount of work needs to be redistributed between people, which means we have to reduce the work time very soon.
Bullshit jobs will also be phased out at some point.

[bd139]

I suspect that the powers that be are against this as the peace of the masses is founded on servitude and distraction. Can't have lots of people unoccupied, no longer struggling to survive or things will turn to shit pretty quickly when they start thinking about the raw deal they got. Hence the economic focus on total employment.

[Kjelt]

we already passed legislation to retire at 67-68 while the french are still striking to retire at 55-60. Not that we are happy with it but we see the necessity

Nope.
Exponentially growing automation means less need for workers in general.
This means that the smaller amount of work needs to be redistributed between people, which means we have to reduce the work time very soon.
Bullshit jobs will also be phased out at some point.

In some time in the future that might be true , too far automating things like Tesla proofed last year can still be a huge problem. You have to act on the numbers from the present and near future in order to steer your country not on an expected future that might never happen.

[Marco]

Competing on entitlements is really just a form of beggar thy neighbour competition in the EU. For a country like say Japan, the level of welfare is a sovereign decision. It doesn't determine their competitiveness, it determines their productiveness and how the wealth created is distributed. Their high level of cultural autonomy also protects them from brain drain.

For countries in the EU, brain/labour drain and welfare tourism are massive problems. We don't have the freedom to determine our welfare system, we can only race to the bottom ... assuming the EU survives and the resulting collapse of welfare systems don't cause revolutions. EU should never have expanded beyond countries which can afford the same minimum wage, at last not with free movement of labour.

Then again, the EU was always designed to grind down the nations of Europe into an indistinguishable mess no longer capable of starting world wars. So judging it by its ability to maintain socialist principles might not be fair.

[ebastler]

Jeez... Chemtrails, anyone? 

[nctnico]

we already passed legislation to retire at 67-68 while the french are still striking to retire at 55-60. Not that we are happy with it but we see the necessity

Nope.
Exponentially growing automation means less need for workers in general.
This means that the smaller amount of work needs to be redistributed between people, which means we have to reduce the work time very soon.

No. Jobs just change. Someone needs to design, program, build and maintain those robots. It does take a better educated work force so education is key to survive. Needing less people to do more creates more income.

[Marco]

Jeez... Chemtrails, anyone? 

Stating that part of the reason the EU was founded was peace is not controversial, it's a common opinion. Increased interconnection through freedom of movement of labour was part of that ... which inevitably causes homogenization. I merely use tendentious terms to describe the process from my perspective, they mean the same thing as the standard feel good terms, they just convey a different emotion.

[nctnico]

Jeez... Chemtrails, anyone? 

Stating that part of the reason the EU was founded was peace is not controversial, it's a common opinion. Increased interconnection through freedom of movement of labour was part of that ... which inevitably causes homogenization. I merely use tendentious terms to describe the process from my perspective, they mean the same thing as the standard feel good terms, they just convey a different emotion.

The 'lesser' developed European countries are necessary for cheap labour and manufacturing. Be happy they are inside the EU!

[bd139]

Yes and no. We hire some software devs from out that way and pay Western Europe salaries. Why do we hire them? Because they're better than local grads are.