Do CO2 treaties decrease or increase global CO2 emissions?

both higher. there is no way the developed countries will agree to the cuts needed unless the developing countries join in. and they are mostly showing willing; china in particular is worried and starting to introduce pollution laws. india are arguing theat their emissions are survival emissions, and they have a point.

there will be no world wide solution unless large, very large, sums are put into 'technological leapfrogging' and low carbon development in the undeveloped countries, and a good deal of understanding and leeway from the developed countries to the developing.

oh dear dana, i wish i had your optimism.

Everything you say is true, but I beg to differ with your last sentence: "No one can stop them." The U.S. and other nations can lead by example. Cutting edge technology is going to explode in many areas, and China will find itself left in the dust, at a competititve disadvantage, something their (false) pride won't allow them to do. I hope. One possibility is that some technology could be shared, with the caveat that the nation first gets its act together and joins the 21st century.

The bottom line is the rest of the world can't wait for China. What accomplishments are garnered will be tempered by China's 19th century approach to energy. But I'm praying that it's not a matter of stopping them from their current path, but persuading them that it's to their best advantage to work in step with most of the rest of the world in addressing climate change.

This will be, I hope, an ongoing discussion. As Obama takes office and opens a dialogue with China and India, as the developed nations begin to follow corrective actions beyond what Kyoto calls for, China should come around to a more reasonable position. We'll be at least a decade behind the curve, and the lack of effort on their part will take a toll. It's frustrating, discouraging, irritating -- but that seems to be the way this is playing out.

I think that few developed countries will accept for very long the reduction of CO2 emissions, since it's a plan for poverty. High cost energy will increase the cost of everything needed, and once it hits the pocketbook level, voters will (hopefully) never again vote for the parties who inflicted this scam on them.

The climate conference in Bali must have added a lot of CO2, all by itself. There were so many private jets that some of them had to land on a nearby island ( no parking) and take boats over to Bali. There is big money involved in this expert marketing scam. I think this money influenced the recent U.S. elections, thru the "bundlers"

I am glad to see the developing world reaching prosperity. I don't think impoverishing the U.S. is the way to do it tho. That's an unsustainable idea. I think it's ethically retarded for us to use natural gas for stationary power generation, instead of coal. Natural gas is the best alternative to oil based auto fuels. Not only is it cheaper than battery power, it's cheaper than gasoline, after the high conversion costs are paid.

Energy is wasted with each conversion . converting electric into chemical energy, then back again, can waste a lot (depends on charge rate and cooling during storage). 50 to 70% waste. windmill backup generators will tend to be the "simple cycle" type, which are only a little more efficient (neglecting power line losses) than just burning the nat gas in a car engine. "combined cycle" generators wouldn't be worth the extra cost - it takes time for the turbine exhaust to warm water enough to steam, and the wind's likely to pick up by then.

Fabulous question, because you're promoting reasoned discourse.

I'd like to begin with Dana 1981 M.S. - the drafters of the Kyoto Protocols (the CO2 treaty to which you refer) stated plainly that the purpose of the Protocols was to transfer wealth from western democracies to other countries in order to level the playing field. Period. CO2 emission measurement in western democracies was to be the method under which the amount of wealth any individual country was required to transfer would be determined. The drafters acknowledged exlplicitly that the Protocols would have zero impact on CO2 levels.

Since the "treaties" have nothing to do with CO2 emission, then with or without them the emissions will be higher. China has vast reserves of coal and opens a new coal-fired electricity generating plant about once a week. Neither China nor India is required to transfer wealth (they are two of the countries intended to receive wealth, along with Zaire, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, etc). Thus, neither is subject to any CO2 limitation. Today, these two countries account together for about 60% of the global increase in emissions.

Well I'm going to start with #2 because that's an easy answer - global CO2 emisisons will be lower with treaties to limit them. That's the entire purpose of these treaties. The only way that wouldn't be the case is if

a) The nations agreeing to the treaties fail to actually reduce their emisisons, or

b) Countries which didn't sign the treaties end up increasing their emissions by far more than they would have in the absence of treaties.

I don't think either of these is a realistic scenario. Back to question #1.

Global CO2 emissions in 20-30 years will be lower than today's by necessity. The effects of global warming will be becoming ever more tangible, and countries which are currently less developed will realize they need to reduce their emissions too. I think the more developed countries will also help them accomplish this goal.

I also think that even if currently undeveloped countries don't sign CO2 emissions treaties in the near future, they likely will sign them in the more distant future, well within the 20-30 year window.

*edit* you're assuming that China and India won't agree to CO2 emissions cuts in the given timeframe. I disagree. China in particular is well aware of the dangers of global warming and their country's contributions to it. I think they'll be coming on board with international treaties very soon.

In fact, they could use it to their own benefit. China is about to become the largest wind turbine manufacturing country. No reason they shouldn't install a bunch of those bad boys on their own soil.

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20080128/heads-china-...

They will certainly be higher. The undeveloped world is developing and will add more CO2 regardless of treaties. You can ask people and countries to do without this and do without that but in the end the people usually get what they want because politicians necessarily do the peoples bidding to some extent even in dictatorships or their days are numbered. Treaties with countries like Russia and China probably aren't worth the paper they are written on.

there is an significant chance that we are able to bypass out of any window of chance to surprisingly slow international warming even formerly we do something significant to fake to be preventing it. one element fairly positive, if we proceed to extract and import at modern-day stages, we are able to proceed to devour at modern-day stages. As one use declines, others will improve to soak up something. We might want to might want to offer up describing tax on fossil fuels as an funding that desires to pay a go back. imagine of it as a go back that desires no funding. We get to pay down our nationwide debt, while we do not recognize of ways we'd want to ever pay it down with out this tax. lack of tax has a tendency to force inflation. that is the inflation that is our enormous funding with out go back. certain, we'd want to sense vulnerable to spend better on protection rigidity adventures at the same time as governments are flush with tax sales. there's a efficient temptation to in uncomplicated words flow out and spend taxes instead of paying down debt. We might want to favor to flow to a slower boom, or perhaps unfavorable GDP boom. If that is what it takes. yet we do favor significant investments in nuclear capacity. We do favor significant investments to get methane out of the arctic. Carbon tax might want to provide for those investments if it were in uncomplicated words in inner most fingers (mine).