None of the world's biggest emitters -- China, the United States, the European Union and India -- have reduced their emissions enough to meet the Paris Agreement goals.

Over the past two decades, China’s emissions have surged as the country has developed economically at a breakneck pace. Mainly because of its reliance on coal, one of the highest-emitting fuels, China now accounts for almost a third of all human-caused greenhouse gases — more than the United States, Europe and Japan combined.

Granted, the article says that China's emissions are projected to peak in 2025, but that still means emissions are estimated to increase every year for another 3 years. They have not (yet) actually reduced their annual emissions, let alone achieved anything close to net-zero.

According to projections from Climate Action Tracker and other monitoring organizations, China’s emissions are nearing their peak, years ahead of when China’s government had pledged to reach that goal. Analyses show China’s rate of emissions neither growing nor declining from now until 2025, before gradually dropping off. China’s peak will occur at a far lower per capita emissions level than countries like the United States.

The goal that China has beaten, it would seem, is their own internal peak date goal. It's good that they set and kept a goal, but keeping an internal goal is not the same thing as keeping the Paris Accord goals. The Paris Accord represents the bare minimum for avoiding a climate catastrophe and should continue to be the primary bar which we measure countries against.

[–] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They literally have a graph showing their paris accord goal as of now, where they as of now, and a 1.5c goal. They and India are ahead.

Also

China’s emissions are nearing their peak, years ahead of when China’s government had pledged to reach that goal.

Every country has different pledge responsibilities it would be drastically unfair to ask more of developing countries to reduce at the same rate as non, especially taking into account the looting the west has done and the offshored emissions on their behalf.

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm not anti-China. I'm just pro-clarity.

When someone says "China has absolutely not met the Paris accord goals" and you respond "New York times reported China is ahead of pledges", it creates the impression that you are correcting the former statement with a contradictory source. The source is not actually contradictory, however, because it explicitly affirms the original point.

They literally have a graph showing their paris accord goal as of now, where they as of now, and a 1.5c goal. They and India are ahead.

That is excellent. I'm very pleased to hear this. Perhaps you could share that graph next time instead?

EDIT: Content warning for the next reply in this comment chain: it contains a prank image featuring pig genitalia and feces. If you're on desktop, the image is hidden within a collapsed spoiler toggle that you can choose to expand if curious. If you're on mobile, please know that spoiler tags are not well supported in most apps yet, so this is your opportunity to stop scrolling if you happen to have issues with the described content.

[–] ikilledtheradiostar@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

It's in the article.

spoiler

How is your reading comprehension so poor?

PIGPOOPBALLS

[–] chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This graph, correct?

A graph of China's emissions over time. It shows three indicators relative to today. The first indicator is China's projected 2030 emissions (approx. -5%). The second indicator is China's target 2030 emissions (approx. -3%). The final indicator shows the reduction necessary to achieve the Paris Climate 1.5C 2030 goal (approx. -50%)

It doesn't seem much closer to the blue Paris Accord goal compared with any of the other graphs in the same article, as far as I can tell.

A graph of U.S. emissions over time. It shows three indicators relative to today. The first indicator is the U.S. projected 2030 emissions (approx. -15%). The second indicator is the U.S. target 2030 emissions (approx. -35%). The final indicator shows the reduction necessary to achieve the Paris Climate 1.5C 2030 goal (approx. -65%) A graph of E.U. emissions over time. It shows three indicators relative to today. The first indicator is the E.U. projected 2030 emissions (approx. -15%). The second indicator is the E.U. target 2030 emissions (approx. -35%). The final indicator shows the reduction necessary to achieve the Paris Climate 1.5C 2030 goal (approx. -70%)

As for India, I don't see how beating a goal of **+**25% emissions with +20% is any cause for celebration. I actually agree with you and the article when you say that they don't need to be held to the same standard as fully developed economies, but in that case we probably shouldn't be talking about them at all when it comes to meeting emissions reduction goals.

[–] Amadan@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Fair enough if we're going just on pledges on total emissions change by 2030 than China and many other countries like India, Sweden, Denmark and Morocco are in line for the pledges taken. This is just a component of the Paris Accords the main pledge was to take action to limit warming well under 2 degrees. No countries action or policies are in line to meet that pledge. That can be seen in the article you linked showing how far off all four emitters are to 1.5.

Climate action tracker and the CCPI they put out are the best sources for accurately tracking countries actions. China and pretty much all other countries fall down on their net zero targets rooted in fiction and missing NDC targets.