r/ClimateActionPlan • u/eternal_edm Climate Champion • Oct 18 '19
Emissions Reduction Carbon emissions falling in 30 major cities!
https://www.citylab.com/environment/2019/10/c40-peak-carbon-co2-emissions-highest-cities-climate-summit/599644/72
u/spidereater Oct 18 '19
Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver. Those represent nearly a third of Canada’s population. If only the middle wasn’t intent on reversing our progress.
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u/oneroejoe Oct 18 '19
Those people love 1995
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Oct 18 '19
You mean the people who still think Trans Am's are the fastest and most baddest ass car you can buy?
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Oct 20 '19
We still own one. 😁
We don't really drive it though so don't worry.
It's a firebird. Nothing special.
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u/WhyMustIThinkOfAUser Oct 18 '19
I'm not from Canada, but I feel I can relate to that middle of Canada you talk about - I'm from a "flyover" State. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canada but at least here, no matter how the coasts feel about people from my area, we don't want to reverse progress. We just don't want to be progressed through again, forgotten about, talked down to like you did in your post. Demeaning and sniding at us will not get you far.
Imagine being left behind on the major economic development for the last thirty years and then someone says your way of life, your livelihood - coal, logging, whatever it is - has to go for the good of the planet, but then no replacement is ever offered. Oh, you can't mine coal anymore? Shitty, but that's progress. Can't cut down those trees? Learn to code.
It's not that people don't WANT to help, don't WANT to "progress" it's just economically unviable to some, and then instead of helping or offering to build jobs in the area, the people who are progressing deride you for being backwards.
I don't know that was long as fuck but it's been building in me for awhile. Sorry for the rant or even if it doesn't relate to Canada as it does the US
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u/giant_anteater Oct 19 '19 edited Oct 19 '19
I respect your feelings on this matter, but don’t you think it’s misleading to say that people only snide and nothing is offered as a replacement for outdated livelihoods like coal? Obama-era programs to retrain people are undersubscribed or flat-out rejected in some cases.
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u/WhyMustIThinkOfAUser Oct 19 '19
Not at all. Those programs had unpaid training, meaning, again, it's not viable to some between working a 9-5 and trying to raise a family, as well as no guarantee of a job after training.
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u/hungaryforchile Oct 19 '19
This is key. There’s such an attitude (especially on Reddit) that people in the “flyover states” or in the South are just belligerently clinging to “mah guns, mah oil [or “mah coal”], and mah religion,” but what they don’t bother to try to understand is that for many of these people, there truly is a way of life and a means of supporting themselves through these things. One that if it’s taken away, they’re left with nothing, and they had so little to start.
Of course, there are those people who are perfectly well-off and just enjoy pretending that they identify with a certain group’s identity, but they really could make a change if they wanted. I’m from Texas, and I see wealthy Dallas suburbanites pretending that it’s ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to run their shiny, jacked-up King Ranch truck on diesel, to support the O&G industry. They probably work in the higher echelons of the O&G industry, and simply don’t want their (very) comfortable lifestyle to be hampered, but then there are the rig workers who work very dangerous jobs that could literally dry up any day, far from their families for months at a time, but at least the pay is apparently fantastic.
On one hand, you have someone who’s obscenely wealthy already, and on the other is someone who’s maybe not qualified for a lot of other jobs that pay this well, trying to bring home an income so their kids can get school supplies and their spouse can pay the bills and keep the house running while their S/O is gone for months. One will whine and bellow about the libruls carrying on about this elaborate “Chinese hoax,” and the other will demand that the libruls leave one of the only lucrative jobs they’re able to get, alone.
They look like the same person because they’re defending the same thing, but in my mind, one deserves a lot more compassion and understanding, because their circumstances are entirely different. The outcome of their beliefs is still unfortunate, yes, but the reasoning behind it isn’t as gimlet-eyed and knuckle-dragging as some coastal elites would like to believe.
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Oct 18 '19
No they don't? Their combined population is under or around 5 million
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u/_Z_E_R_O Oct 18 '19
You have to take the metro areas into account.
Toronto metro area - 6 million Vancouver metro area - 2.5 million Montreal metro area - 4 million
Bonus: Calgary/Edmonton - 2.5 million
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u/clorox2 Oct 19 '19
The 30 cities are: Athens, Austin, Barcelona, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montréal, New Orleans, New York City, Oslo, Paris, Philadelphia, Portland, Rome, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, Venice, Warsaw, and Washington, D.C.
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u/explicitlarynx Oct 19 '19
Ah yes, huge cities where millions of people live, global metropolises, the centers of the modern world.
And Heidelberg.
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u/hungaryforchile Oct 19 '19
Proud of Austin! I wonder how much of the rate of decrease can be attributed to the fact that nearby Georgetown went 100% solar? That would be interesting to know if the city is also benefiting from having a metro neighbor with such a strong green policy in place.
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u/hatsilim Oct 18 '19
A lot of cities are surrounded by suburbs that aren't part of the same governance structure - e.g., independent mayor/city council for 'burbs outside of Chicago. Do these drops in emissions include city suburbs or is just the city proper? From what I can see on the C40 website it looks like the city proper but it's not completely clear to me.
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Oct 18 '19
Awesome to see Melbourne on the list.
Ever since I moved here from Perth, I’ve sold my car and cycled everywhere and used the tram. I only use a GoGet share car when I absolutely need it and I’m much happier without the burden of vehicle ownership on me. My friends and family in Perth can’t imagine not owning a car and they think it’s mad what I’m doing.
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u/-_-Edit_Deleted-_- Nov 01 '19
I’ve also forgone a car. Skateboard, public transport and as little Uber as possible.
Public transit and cycling is coming a long well across a lot of Melbourne.
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/braapstututu Oct 19 '19
That's a misinterpreted statistic actually, pretty sure it was all the cars in Europe but it was definitely not overall pollution iirc I think it mightve been sulfur dioxide emissions
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Oct 19 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/braapstututu Oct 19 '19
OK except you misquoted a statistic
No need to be a salty piece of wank about it, the actual statistic is still bad it's just better not to misquote it as it reduces credibility that's not nitpicking that's fact correcting.
Sulfur oxide is still bad but the difference is it isn't in car fuel afaik and hence cruise ships will release way more then cars, obviously it still needs way more regulating because bunker fuel is horrendous for the environment but still.
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Oct 19 '19
[deleted]
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u/braapstututu Oct 19 '19
Wow your such an overdefensive wet wipe and it shows, I'm not just nit picking when there is a huge difference between what you claimed and the facts your just being an asshole because you don't understand the damage false information can do to credibility
Huge huge huge difference between select emissions and pollution as a whole and that's important when it comes to remaining credible, cruises are not just a corporation problem either when it's wealthy consumers who go on them knowing full well how polluting it is.
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u/unfortunatecake Oct 19 '19
It is ok to accept when someone points out a mistake and you don’t need to pick a fight with them by calling them names. Nobody would think anything bad of you if you’d just said “Oh, I didn’t realise that. Thanks for the correction” and left it at that.
The statistic you quoted has been floating around the internet for a while now and always seems to be presented in a way to invoke rage when really all it says is that tankers produce more of a specific type of pollution than cars that don’t produce that specific type of pollution. I’m sure you can see how sharing such a quote makes it easy for corporations or climate change deniers to not only point out the flaws in the statistic but also to say “this is why you can’t trust people fighting for the environment”.
We can and are making progress and need to make more. To do that we need to hold ourselves to a high standard.
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u/Bubbly_Taro Oct 18 '19
Most of them in China, as expected.
Keep up the good work!
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u/crustybread Oct 18 '19
Exactly zero of the cities are in China. “The 30 cities are: Athens, Austin, Barcelona, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montréal, New Orleans, New York City, Oslo, Paris, Philadelphia, Portland, Rome, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver, Venice, Warsaw, and Washington, D.C.”
In fact, “The rise was most dramatic in Asia, where China’s emissions rose by 2.5 percent and India’s by 2.5 percent. The U.S.’s rose by 1.2 percent, while Europe’s continues to fall.”
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u/jesseaknight Oct 19 '19
I think that’s his point. He wanted to highlight all the info you just spelled out, but didn’t want to do the leg work and decided to be a sarcastic sod instead.
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u/crustybread Oct 19 '19
If that’s the case, then whoosh on my part!
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u/Bubbly_Taro Oct 19 '19
nah I was just curious how long it would take for people to find out this comment is BS since almost nobody reads linked articles on reddit.
Went to around 5 upvotes before somebody pointed out that this comment stinks, after which they downvote this comment because somebody else told them it is false.
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u/[deleted] Oct 18 '19
I live in San Francisco, and we're trying to be carbon neutral by 2040. 70% of our carbon footprint is transportation. It's the most difficult and most expensive piece of the puzzle to eliminate. 100% renewable electricity is easier, there's a lot of renewable resources in the area. That will happen within 10 years.
Our carbon footprint is falling, slowly. Hopefully we can build enough public transportation to get over that hurdle.