Climate Action Without China is Inaction

For decades people in western nations have been doing ever-more to cut man-made global warming via the reduction of CO2 emissions. This has caused a backlash among many who have lost jobs as a result.

Australia just saw an election surprise because the choices were curbing global warming or a strong economy… The right won.

Some would argue that the loss of jobs in the west thanks to restrictive regulations of coal and other forms of energy as well as emissions controls are worth the loss of jobs.

They fail to take into account the lost jobs are made up for with new jobs in Asia where a new coal plant is built every week! China alone builds one every 2 weeks. And the pollution controls on all energy is far worse than in the west.

Most people do not realize, China emits more CO2 today than the U.S. and the EU combined!

In addition, much recycling from the west has been sent to China. We know now most of the plastic and other pollution in the oceans comes from – you guessed it, China.

Now, it turns out the ozone layer is decreasing again thanks to banned CFCs being used.

Take a guess who is behind this… We’ll wait.

one-mississippi, two-mississippi 🙂

Yes, China. Again.

CFC-11 is also known as trichlorofluoromethane, and is one of a number of chloroflurocarbon (CFC) chemicals that were initially developed as refrigerants during the 1930s.

However, it took many decades for scientists to discover that when CFCs break down in the atmosphere, they release chlorine atoms that are able to rapidly destroy the ozone layer which protects us from ultraviolet light. A gaping hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica was discovered in the mid 1980s.

The international community agreed the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which banned most of the offending chemicals. Recent research suggests that the hole in the Northern Hemisphere could be fully fixed by the 2030s and Antarctica by the 2060s.

Other emissions are coming from other parts of China, as the monitoring stations just can’t see them, They could also be coming from India, Africa or South America as again there is very little monitoring in these regions.

If there is good news it’s that the Chinese say they have already started to clamp down on production by what the term “rogue manufacturers”. Last November, several suspects were arrested in Henan province, in possession of 30 tonnes of CFC-11.

Clare Perry from the Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA) said that the new findings re-affirmed the need to stamp out production.

This news reminds us we live in a global world. Buying an electric car which gets its battery thanks to 20 feet of strip-mining in Asia isn’t a great environmental solution. Climate action without China really is inaction.


 

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