All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050 | Hacker News Reader

All EU Members are committed to achieving full climate neutrality by 2050

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Without specific measures to reduce carbon emissions in a couple of months --- not just offsets, but actual shutdowns of emission sources --- I will not hold my breath that any EU members will actually meet this goal. That is the same as me saying 'I will quite smoking next year.' Just buying time.

Climate lockdowns, they will claim, will do this. They will use the conveniently created lockdown framework with QR and cell-surveillance, to enforce compliance.

Which will accelerate the trend towards far-right governments in europe, who will then roll back climate change laws.

Far-right and far-left agree on lockdowns, merely the reasoning will change.

Not exactly sure what they're thinking and certainly don't want to produce conspiracy theories but with their track record of the past 2 decades of "promising moonshots, not achieving much" and their recent ideas (weakening e2ee, chat control) and actions (e.g. against climate activists), to me it's pointing towards a more repressive state because they already know that they've lost the race against climate change.

I think both groups (climate activists, surveillance-repression fascists) are separate, but the latter welcome the fact that the former gives them an acceptable excuse for more restrictive laws, more control, more surveilance.

Good thing and since it's a world problem, what matters the most is:

1. Also reduce emissions in the US and China[^1],

2. Save the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and SEA mostly[^2].

The best would be to introduce a tax from the CO2 emitters paid to the forest countries if (and only if) they protect them.

[^1]: https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/co2_m... [^2]: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/img/biome/map-rainforest-m...

The CBAM should be a good first step to twist China and US arm into pricing their carbon as it should be.

What do the trees in the Amazon breathe?

Forest protection alone isn't enough. If you rely on forests, you'd actually have to grow them. Which would conflict with growing human population.

If the forests want to grow, they will do so themselves thank you very much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2021/12/09/...

There are no tropical forests in the EU. And German forests do only grow by increasing biomass of older trees, new saplings are completely eaten away by deer if not actively protected.

Unless China and India cut emissions drastically it’s a drop in the ocean. There should be tariffs on the biggest emitters to the point where they can’t afford to NOT cut emissions if they want to trade good and services.

China and India's per capita emissions are about ten times lesser than Americans.

Americans should stop driving bulldozers instead of blaming the poor

Per capita emissions are a distraction. The earth’s atmosphere doesn’t care how many people were involved. What matters is total emissions. On that front China leads by a factor of 4 or 5 over India and the U.S. which are roughly the same.

The atmosphere also doesn't care which governments are involved, or who is "leading". We need all the emissions to stop, this announcement is about 7.5% of the total which is quite significant. 12 more of those and we're done.

I thought China and India were still increasing quite rapidly (I could be wrong). Unless they start going the other way, that 7% will be less than the growth from others, so no closer to 0 globally.

Per capita emissions are a good indicator of the lifestyle of a country.

Total country emissions are an indicator of population and lifestyle. Since reducing the population is not an option for most countries, the solution is changing lifestyle.

Then again, the US having a much higher emissions per capita assumes that with comparatively much less effort, we can reduce our emission than India or China. For us, reducing our emissions by 10% would mean driving less, eat less beef, investing in new technologies, etc., while for India and China that would mean overturning years of industrialization.

While I do agree that both need to reduce emissions, we need to endure inconveniences and move our tax dollars to clean energy, while they have to continue being poor forever or spend inordinate amounts of money to industrialize using clean energy.

EU is about 7.5% of global emissions, I'd call that a lot more than a drop. Also, one of the "main areas of action" here is "carbon duty on certain imported goods", which is quite close to what you're asking for.

If we do as you say, then goods production will need to shift to the West. China and India will become a drop in the ocean, and we'll be the biggest polluters by far.

How about we stop acting as if the West wasn't just shifting pollution onto poorer nations by exploiting them as factories and landfills?

China’s already all in on renewables, it helps that they’re the cheapest option right now

The US really needs to step up though, they’re not even in the Paris agreement

The U.S. rejoined in 2021

China is not all in on renewables, they are all in on growth at any cost. They started 50GW of coal power plant construction last year, six times more than the entire rest of the world combined…

(And even at a third the GDP per capital, Chinese carbon emissions per capita surpass the likes of Germany, let alone France.)

Then take back all the polluting industries you off shored to China because otherwise you can say good bye to 50-70% of the things around you

And that’s the key here. It’s easy to meet “climate goals” when you offshore production to countries with zero pollution laws.

Neutrality won't save us. Neutrality is kicking the can down the road, to be picked up by... well, whoever is alive and still civilized by then.

The difference between the world now, and the world in 2050, will have to be much larger than the difference in the world of 1996 and now, in order for this to happen.

Without carbon capture it seems impossible to me. A person burns one plastic bag in their garden, and boom, no net zero.

The earth absorbs carbon through different mechanisms, although a lot of them are getting close to saturation.

Has the IPCC or any credible organisation demonstrated that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is the primary driver of climate change?

Note that emissions and actual pollution in the atmosphere (let's not forget our lands and the seas) MUST be heavily reduced to levels FAR FAR lower than the current and worsening crapping in our planet.

The first MUST be identified before throwing resources and effort at it.

Who enforces this?

Earth when it melts humans away upon failure

"from 2035 new cars and vans must not emit any CO2"

Wont this effectively kill any ICE vehicle? Biogas, ethanol, HVO diesel, etc.

Yes

I don't fully understand these proclamations. Can we really actually electrify everything, everywhere, by then? And what about long distance travel and haul? EV still seem somewhat of a niche in that they have clear restrictions and constraints.

Europe has a much more fleshed out freight rail system and the vast majority of European countries have ocean access, so long range haul can be done by the cheapest form of transport of all, boat.

It is estimated that the full electrification of all railway tracks in Germany will be completed not earlier than 2070.

But maybe I am confusing "Deutschlandtakt 2070" and the electrification of the tracks.

Never heard that "Deutschlandtakt 2070" (lol) depends on electrification of all railway tracks, to be honest. Would be interesting to read up on that, so if you have a source, I'd be glad to read it!

yeah, you are; however given the zero amount of interest shown on focusing on the train system by the department for mobility, doesn't give much hope it's going to happen before 2070... they want to build more and bigger high ways such that there is less traffic jam, thus less emissions, which is just hilarious.

Problem is, Germany is in a central location in Europe. Lots of east-west and north-south transit going through. That transit has to use the autobahn, for various reasons.

One is the EU: forcing them to use railway loading (such as in Switzerland) isn't possible due to the EU demanding free transit. Making transit on the autobahn prohibitively expensive by fees isn't possible, because the EU can and will veto higher fees or special transit fees. Changing status quo in the EU isn't possible, because all Germany's neighbours will veto.

Second is technical: Railways aren't standardized. Track width changes towards the east. Train station platforms and tunnels are different width and height per country, your load will bump into stuff unless you do lowest-common-size (which is smaller than a normal 20ft/40ft container crosssection, so non-viable). Signaling is different in each and every EU country. Rolling stock for goods transport is usually decades old and doesn't support any of the necessary modern safety standards like ECTS that are used on new tracks and cross-border. So you would have to have huge reloading terminals on each railway track and each border. Or you would have to modernize the railway system across Europe. Huge costs and lack of current demand create a chicken-egg-scenario here. Also, reloading creates delays, which the current just-in-time logistics are allergic to.

Third is domestic: There is also non-transit traffic, where origin or destination is somewhere in Germany. Those will still have to use roads, because the country doesn't have a dense-enough railway network. And building a sufficiently dense one would take forever, if at all possible. New construction is usually extremely expensive, delayed or stopped due to environmental/noise/landmark protection reasons (usually NIMBYs successfully abusing those regs). Only possibility is small extensions, such as "make this road/track/... a little wider", because it is already there which makes arguing against it on the aforementioned grounds harder.

So we maybe will debate if railways ever will take off and then just extend the autobahn. Because there is actually no other choice.

Deutschlandtakt has nothing to do with electrification. And full electrification isn't planned for any point in time, there will (if it goes as planned) never be a fully electrified railway network. They are planning to either shut down small branches or use locomotives with batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.

Well as of 2021 54% of German tracks are already electrified and have a 75% 2030 goal, so to claim it's going to take 50 years to do the other 46% seems wildly off base.

you do realize boats burn bunker right? One of the worst kinds of fuel. It's definitely not carbon neutral either.

As much as I prefer electrification, EUs policy on this front is clear. The shipping industry is one of the cited primary motivators for the EUs current Hydrogen infrastructure initiatives, such as the "Fit for 55" program.

Just as the EU are making moves on de-carbonizing road infrastructure, you do realize that people are thinking about the maritime aspect also? These net-zero 2050 commitments include maritime transport.

> Can we really actually electrify everything, everywhere, by then?

Probably not, which is why that quote is only about "new cars and vans". If that is achieved, most vehicles on the road will still be emitting CO2.

it's worded so that synthetic zero emission fuels can still come along and save the ice engine which is what mercedes etc are hoping for

and porsche

Yes, but as per usual this will most likely get pushed once the date gets closer, as I doubt the EU member states will all have the electric infrastructure for these vehicles.

However could be wrong, as there’s much more public transit in those countries so we’ll see.

So be it.

Yes but make no mistake: German car manufacturers will make the German governments lobby for whatever they find value in when time goes by.

They've recently invented the funny term "Technologieoffenheit" as an abstract concept to allow for "whatever the market decides" which sounds good but completely ignores, e.g. that they won't have enough renewable energy to produce zero-emission e-fuels/hydrogen at a scale big enough to achieve reasonable consumer prices for usage in cars. AFAIK anything that is based on organic matter can only be net-zero and potentially drives out potentially more important food. Not sure yet what this "strategy" leads to if not more populist politics.

Err, whatever the market decides, isn’t that what we’ve had in the US forever? It works for some thing but we don’t seem to be the leaders as far as fighting climate change goes.

> . that they won't have enough renewable energy to produce zero-emission e-fuels/hydrogen at a scale big enough to achieve reasonable consumer prices for usage in cars.

which then means that "everyone" is still using ICE cars, which can't be driven climate neutral. The the lobby will again cry that it is impossible that we move everything to electric instantly and/or e fuels can't be afforded by the poorest. The result will be that climate goals regarding ICE cars will be watered down again, and the government will subsidize e fuels.

Regarding food: just kill more rein forests in brasil, which we are already doing anywasys (we produce bio gas from plants (1/30 area efficiency of photovoltaics while eroding the ground) and add bio fuel already to fossil fuels (which btw. hardly improves the impact on the environnment -> a bit less theoretical emissions while way more air pollution)

Not good enough.

Far too little far too late

Why 2050 ? They are already today neuter about climate. /s

"I'm committed to reaching my target weight by 2050, but I'll probably die of diabetes before then..."

With no emitters alive that goal makes some sense.

Europeans to regress to hunter gatherers in 2051

why does emissions get way more attention than plastics and forever chemicals? that shit scares me way more. At this pace, soon our food and water will not be safe anymore, what's the point of preventing climate change if you won't have water to drink and food to eat?

Because there is an overwhelming global consensus on the impacts and dangers of climate change, and no consensus on the impacts and dangers of plastic and forever chemicals.

why not both? :)

If you wealthy you can filter your water and pay for best organic food. However, no amount of money will buy you different atmosphere. And wealthy people sets agenda for governments.

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