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Can anyone who has been to China explain the Kyoto Treaty's logic? Seriously.

A

AndrewR

Lifer
We just returned from China and visited four cities: Hong Kong, Beijing, Changsha, and Guangzhou. I can easily say that those were the most polluted places I have ever seen in my entire life and that includes visits to eastern European cities like Bratislava, Warsaw, and Budapest. There's simply no comparison. The air was so bad that the haze was permament, and the air actually burned in my throat after one night, particularly in Changsha. There's so much coal use in the winter (that's how they heat their homes) that soot is everywhere.

So China is exempt from clean air standards under Kyoto, right? Does that make ANY sense?
 
China is considered an developing nation, they are exempt from Kyoto for a few years but it will catch up. The MOST polluting nation on earth is United States of America, and we refuse to even consider the Kyoto treaty. Does that make ANY sense?
We are considered a global leader, and should lead by example.
 
Weren't they exempt by not yet being members of the WTO?

I've never been to China, but I was in Korea in October and was amazed how dirty the air in Seoul was. Taegu wasn't the greatest either.


 
Originally posted by: AndrewR
We just returned from China and visited four cities: Hong Kong, Beijing, Changsha, and Guangzhou. I can easily say that those were the most polluted places I have ever seen in my entire life and that includes visits to eastern European cities like Bratislava, Warsaw, and Budapest. There's simply no comparison. The air was so bad that the haze was permament, and the air actually burned in my throat after one night, particularly in Changsha. There's so much coal use in the winter (that's how they heat their homes) that soot is everywhere.

So China is exempt from clean air standards under Kyoto, right? Does that make ANY sense?
Click to expand...

China's per-capita emissions are much lower than other developing countries and their economy is not us flexible in adopting cleaner fuels. They have not contributed significantly to the high pollution levels we experience today, which has been caused by developed countries in the past decades, especially US. That's why China will not be expected to join Kyoto until 2013.

As a side note; China has recently decreased emissions without legal requirements to do so, the same cannot be said about US under Bush administration. So the question you should be asking is; Does it make any sense that US turned it's back on Kyoto?
 
odd isn't it how the US produces more pollution than China yet we can walk on the street in our cities and not feel it at all (cept LA). While in China you look up, you look down, you look left, you look right pollution everywhere. Thats because you visited a city in China but if you go out west there isnt that much pollution because its rural farmland/deserts/mountains. China has all their population stuck on the East coast because its the only place you can actually live urbanly so you got all the pollution stuck there.

Currently you should be concerned about the US and its current administration which is not very environmentally friendly. But in the future you better fear China and India and the pollution they will generate when everyone there owns a car. OMG
 
I imagine the reasoning is as a developing nation, China needs whatever breaks it can get to 'catch up' while nations in the West can probably accomodate the changes necessary for Kyoto better because the costs of doing so will be relatively less.
 
Originally posted by: yllus
I imagine the reasoning is as a developing nation, China needs whatever breaks it can get to 'catch up' while nations in the West can probably accomodate the changes necessary for Kyoto better because the costs of doing so will be relatively less.
Click to expand...

but the question remains how much damage will they do to the environment while they're in the process of "catching up" to the West? I think pollution controls should be in place now because it will be a lot harder to fix the damage later on. I've been to China to help train workers there and I've seen some of their construction crews working nearby. There is no environmental training or laws for them. They just dump whatever they want wherever they want. Dumping chemicals, sewage or burning trash and materials, and of course no recycling at all. Maybe with proper training on how to dispose of the materials in an environmentally safe way they won't make the same mistake every other 1st world country did on its march to modernization. But no, they are in such a rush to modernize that they don't care that they are making things worse.


 
Originally posted by: Siwy
Originally posted by: AndrewR
We just returned from China and visited four cities: Hong Kong, Beijing, Changsha, and Guangzhou. I can easily say that those were the most polluted places I have ever seen in my entire life and that includes visits to eastern European cities like Bratislava, Warsaw, and Budapest. There's simply no comparison. The air was so bad that the haze was permament, and the air actually burned in my throat after one night, particularly in Changsha. There's so much coal use in the winter (that's how they heat their homes) that soot is everywhere.

So China is exempt from clean air standards under Kyoto, right? Does that make ANY sense?
Click to expand...

China's per-capita emissions are much lower than other developing countries and their economy is not us flexible in adopting cleaner fuels. They have not contributed significantly to the high pollution levels we experience today, which has been caused by developed countries in the past decades, especially US. That's why China will not be expected to join Kyoto until 2013.

As a side note; China has recently decreased emissions without legal requirements to do so, the same cannot be said about US under Bush administration. So the question you should be asking is; Does it make any sense that US turned it's back on Kyoto?
Click to expand...

care to explain why china has a brown cloud and the US does not?

Links to china reducing pollution as well...
 
Originally posted by: charrison

care to explain why china has a brown cloud and the US does not?

Links to china reducing pollution as well..
Click to expand...

I don't need to explain why China has a brown cloud, because it is not true. There are cities in China that have the brown cloud but that is being addressed as noted in this short article:

"The most impressive point to me is that when I took photos in late 1990s, the pictures looked like they were covered by a thick layer of dust. But now, the trees are greener and the sky is bluer," said Lu Peihong, a Beijing resident living in Haidian District.
Regardless of the arguments, the local government has indeed made some breakthroughs in fighting against air pollution.
In June this year, the city's environmental protection authorities for the first time released a list of major industrial polluters and ordered them to clean their operations.


Additionally, emissions in China are 3.2 tones per person compared to 19.4 tones per person in US. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.


 
As a side note; China has recently decreased emissions without legal requirements to do so, the same cannot be said about US under Bush administration.
Click to expand...

Funny, Bush has also reduces emmssions. Technically they are at their lowest ever - even lower than when god Clinton was in office and he gave emmissions a pass.
 
brown clouds have nothing to do with Kyoto. They are an indication not of the total amount of fossil fuels burned, but of how those emissions are filtered. If the Chinese want to kill themselves with toxins, let 'em. The only thing you should worry about are those emissions that can affect you, ie CO2.
 
they are exempt because they would doom passage of any such treaty and everyone knows it. the treaty is absurd anyways.
 
Originally posted by: Siwy
Originally posted by: charrison

care to explain why china has a brown cloud and the US does not?

Links to china reducing pollution as well..
Click to expand...

I don't need to explain why China has a brown cloud, because it is not true. There are cities in China that have the brown cloud but that is being addressed as noted in this short article:

"The most impressive point to me is that when I took photos in late 1990s, the pictures looked like they were covered by a thick layer of dust. But now, the trees are greener and the sky is bluer," said Lu Peihong, a Beijing resident living in Haidian District.
Regardless of the arguments, the local government has indeed made some breakthroughs in fighting against air pollution.
In June this year, the city's environmental protection authorities for the first time released a list of major industrial polluters and ordered them to clean their operations.


Additionally, emissions in China are 3.2 tones per person compared to 19.4 tones per person in US. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
Click to expand...



I am not sure that is an accurate picture. 200M in the cities and a billion dirt farmers.
 
Originally posted by: Kibbo
brown clouds have nothing to do with Kyoto. They are an indication not of the total amount of fossil fuels burned, but of how those emissions are filtered. If the Chinese want to kill themselves with toxins, let 'em. The only thing you should worry about are those emissions that can affect you, ie CO2.
Click to expand...



NOx and SOx are far more harmful that CO2.
 
China has all their population stuck on the East coast because its the only place you can actually live urbanly so you got all the pollution stuck there.
Click to expand...


Actually, the reason the pollution stays put in the coast is due to the mountain range directly to the West acting as a barrier...
 
Developing countries have already rejected deeper emission cuts and about what happens when Kyoto runs out despite EU bullying.
 
Originally posted by: kage69
China has all their population stuck on the East coast because its the only place you can actually live urbanly so you got all the pollution stuck there.
Click to expand...


Actually, the reason the pollution stays put in the coast is due to the mountain range directly to the West acting as a barrier...
Click to expand...

hmm what about the Appalachian mountain range directly west of our east coast cities? They are a barrier but we don't have the sun covered up there.

What I was trying to say is in China's situation: if you take the US population and its pollution and squeeze it all into the East coast, you'll have brown pollution in the skies above there too. China has 1 billion people and a lot of them are squeezed into the East coast resulting in lots of pollution and smog.
 
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Siwy
Originally posted by: charrison

care to explain why china has a brown cloud and the US does not?

Links to china reducing pollution as well..
Click to expand...

I don't need to explain why China has a brown cloud, because it is not true. There are cities in China that have the brown cloud but that is being addressed as noted in this short article:

"The most impressive point to me is that when I took photos in late 1990s, the pictures looked like they were covered by a thick layer of dust. But now, the trees are greener and the sky is bluer," said Lu Peihong, a Beijing resident living in Haidian District.
Regardless of the arguments, the local government has indeed made some breakthroughs in fighting against air pollution.
In June this year, the city's environmental protection authorities for the first time released a list of major industrial polluters and ordered them to clean their operations.


Additionally, emissions in China are 3.2 tones per person compared to 19.4 tones per person in US. I think you are barking up the wrong tree.
Click to expand...



I am not sure that is an accurate picture. 200M in the cities and a billion dirt farmers.
Click to expand...

You want an accurate picture?

Americans on average produce over 6 times as much emissions as Chinese and have been doing it for decades, while China, relatively speaking, only recently became a significant polluter. Chinese government, as bad as it is, is actually cracking down on emission causing companies while American government is relaxing emission restrictions to satisfy their corporate cronies.

Yet, you come here and complain about China and how they are worse polluters than US.
 
Originally posted by: CanOWorms
Developing countries have already rejected deeper emission cuts and about what happens when Kyoto runs out despite EU bullying.
Click to expand...


Which countries? Rejected what exactly? Links?
 
China/Russia are exempt because they would have to resort to rather draconian methods to get their output down to Kyoto's specs. We would have to say bye bye to their economy.
 
Originally posted by: FleshLight
China/Russia are exempt because they would have to resort to rather draconian methods to get their output down to Kyoto's specs. We would have to say bye bye to their economy.
Click to expand...

I don't think Russia is exempted...
 
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