It feels weird when ever I read stuff where China is doing things to improve or protect the environment where as US is doing the opposite. Like we are living in a mirror world.
It is true that the US could be doing better, but it's not doing the opposite of what China is doing when it comes to energy & environmental improvements.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_the_United...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country
as in, it was propaganda act by politicians who used ignorance of what it stood for so you would think they were doing something about it when they were doing absolutely nothing. it had no power of enforcement because they could not even come to an agreement of who would be allowed to enforce it. when you let the fox set the rules the chickens outcome does not change.
it was worse than no treaty. with no treaty people can be brought back to the table and iron out one that has limits that apply equally to all nations with an agreed to enforcement. (per capita limits are the means some countries used to skirt any impact they have on the world)
For instance, on the renewable energy angle, according to the American Wind Energy Organization, five states now regularly generate 20%+ of their energy from wind. (http://www.awea.org/MediaCenter/pressrelease.aspx?ItemNumber...) That number would've been unthinkable 10 years ago.
(Note that the windy states tend to be Republican voting rural mid-west ones. That doesn't mean that Trump isn't going to stop mocking wind energy (as he just recently did). Rather, it does mean there is bipartisan support in these states for wind energy, and that Trump's negative comments on wind in Iowa didn't go down very well with Iowans and Iowa politicians from both sides of the aisle -- https://apnews.com/a2b500b82d5a44eeb9759ca31d0b4a33)
Having a national leader that seems hostile to anything environmental certainly doesn't help matters, but it's not all doom and gloom.
that's 4% in 11 years, basically flatlining compared to other countries.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#/medi...
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...
2. https://askjaenergy.com/2014/11/17/iceland-is-the-world-larg...
No, it's 45% growth in 11 years. It's 4 percentage points, but that is something different.
Despite its urban sprawl, LA has one of the lowest emissions per capita in the US, lower than nyc even. The pollution tends to accumulate due to it's geography, being that the city is in a basin instead of dispersing. Tear down the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains, and the air quality would be greatly improved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_...
Both LA and Beijing have similar topological bowl and inversion problems. Tear down the western and northern hills in Beijing, and the air quality would also be greatly improved.
So yeah no.
USA on place 12, Germany 38 and China is at 55.
Better list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
I was in Beijing in 1983 and the air was clean and everyone rode bicycles with almost zero cars. They could do that although it wouldn't fix the steel plants...