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Comment by StreamBright | Hacker News Reader

>> Although largely symbolic in nature, the climate declaration was adopted by a unanimous vote.

What are the expected changes that actually will help climate change?

"The decision does not contain specific measures, it is more of a set of symbolic commitments: the Assembly vowed to take the environmental effects into account on any matter that directly or indirectly affects CO2 emissions, and also to prioritise the fight against climate change in the city's decisionmaking process, and to increase the transparency of information relating to the climate effects of municipal firms." https://index.hu/english/2019/11/05/budapest_general_assembl...

Maybe someone can hazard a guess of what sense the word emergency is being used here? I don't really follow why there is a trend towards declaring climate emergencies. Is there any call for action that isn't already business as usual for the green parties?

I'm also glad to see a green policy that is, if not pro-nuclear, at least accepting that it is a reasonable target for financing.

The word 'emergency' is being used to freshen up the rhetoric.

It generally just makes everybody else roll their eyes.

Why trust experts right? The people know best.

Simply because it is an emergency. The extremely conservative IPCC has set out the timeline for changes on emissions, and we have ten years left. Ten years to get on the track to carbon neutrality. Leave it longer and we lock in a higher temperature rise. The longer the delay the more serious the consequences. Yet many countries and politicians keep pretending it's business as usual.

Seems to adequately fit under emergency as immediate threat to me.

In what sense are the IPCC conservative? They've overestimated temperature changes since their first analysis in 1990.

Maybe calling institutions "conservative" because they are the lowest of the over estimators is part of the problem here?

Nearly all surprises are of how much faster than predicted events are happening. IPCC have consistently under-estimated:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-ipcc-unde...

They are, after all, an intergovernmental UN body, which includes representatives from the oil states and countries that are "unconvinced" by climate heating. Yet IPCC reports require unanimity. Thus what gets published is the least contentious, least offensive spin possible - the version that even the oil states and coal exporters can agree.

Saudi has tried to significantly tone down reports to protect their oil interests:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/m...

"Climate emergency" is the slogan of the recent Extinction Rebellion protest movement, that's why.

> What are the expected changes that actually will help climate change?

When whole countries are denying there's a problem, I think countries stepping forward to declare there's a problem to be addressed is a (sad but) necessary first step.

This is where we disagree. There are many countries which are not denying the existence of climate change, part of the Paris agreement (btw. it is very questionable if the targets of that are actually what we need), they just do not care because the fear-mongering of voters pushed the country to a certain way. A prime example is Germany. Not denying climate change, anti-nuclear propaganda took over and this is how Germany is the number one source of CO2 in the EU (by volume).

https://www.statista.com/chart/17582/megatonnes-of-co2-equiv...

I think it is not enough to put out meaningless virtue signaling, you have to back it up with rock-solid policy otherwise it is only good to win you over some votes (which is the reason politicians use it at the first place).

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