{"id":13546,"date":"2015-07-02T15:04:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T19:04:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=13546"},"modified":"2015-07-02T15:07:02","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T19:07:02","slug":"georgia-1-in-solar-jobs-and-china-beats-its-own-emissions-pledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/georgia-1-in-solar-jobs-and-china-beats-its-own-emissions-pledge.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia #1 in solar jobs and China beats its own emissions pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIt’s great the three biggest climate change problem countries are finally\r\n\r\n\"300x454<\/a>\r\ncommitting to emissions reductions and other substantial changes,\r\nalthough not enough to, you know,\r\nstop global warming from getting even worse.\r\nMeanwhile, CO2 emissions did not increase from 2013 to 2014,\r\neven though the global economy grew, and this was largely\r\nbecause of renewable energy deployment in China.\r\nThat’s right: China is actually leading the way faster on climate change\r\nthan it is promising to do.\r\nAnd the old fake excuse that we need fossil fuels for economic growth\r\nis busted.\r\nOh, and Georgia is leading the U.S.!\r\n

\r\nChris Mooney and Steven Mufson, Washington Post, 30 June 2015,\r\n\r\nIn a major moment for climate policy, China, Brazil, and the U.S. all announce new commitments<\/a>,\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n

\r\nPresident Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, leaders of\r\nthe Western Hemisphere’s two most populous countries, released a\r\nstatement Tuesday pledging each country to get 20 percent of its\r\nelectricity by 2030 from renewable sources, not including\r\nhydropower. In addition, Brazil pledged to restore 12 million\r\nhectares, or 46,332 square miles, of its forests — about the\r\nsize of England — by 2030 while it also pursues\r\n“policies aimed at eliminating illegal deforestation.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAlso on Tuesday, China extended and solidified climate commitments\r\nmade in November by releasing its own emissions reduction target in\r\nanticipation of the United Nations’ climate meeting in Paris in late\r\n2015. The world’s largest emitter pledged to reduce the amount of\r\ncarbon emitted relative to the size of its economy by 60 to 65\r\npercent by 2030, building on cuts already made and in line with a\r\nprior agreement with the United States.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nCatherine Brahic, New Scientist, 13 March 2015,\r\n\r\nCO2 emissions may have stalled in 2014 — why?<\/a>\r\n<\/a>\r\n

\r\n

\r\nCarbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector plateaued in 2014,\r\naccording to preliminary figures from the International Energy\r\nAgency.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIf the figures are confirmed in June, it will be the first time in\r\n40 years that the rise in emissions has stalled in the absence of a\r\nfinancial crisis.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nThe IEA\r\n\r\nannounced today<\/a> that global emissions from energy generation\r\nin 2014 were 32.3 billion tonnes of carbon, the same as in 2013….\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIn its statement, the IEA says: “The preliminary IEA data suggest\r\nthat efforts to mitigate climate change may be having a more\r\npronounced effect on emissions than had previously been thought.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIt says the stall is due to changing energy consumption patterns in\r\nChina and the influential countries from the Organisation for\r\nEconomic Co-operation and Development. For example, it points out\r\nthat the use of renewable energy sources like hydropower, solar and\r\nwind are on the rise in China, and coal is in decline.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd China did even better this year, as previously written up here:\r\n\r\nChina reduced CO2 emissions by 8% in 4 months<\/a>.\r\nHow? Less coal, more water, wind, and increasingly solar power.\r\n

\r\nIt’s not just China.\r\nMeg Mirshak, Augusta Chronicle, 30 June 2015,\r\n\r\nGeorgia led states in clean energy jobs during first quarter, according to report<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nGeorgia’s booming solar industry led to its rank as the No. 1 job\r\ncreator in the clean energy industry during the first quarter of\r\n2015, according to a report released Tuesday.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nProjects across the state totaled 2,870 job announcements, nearly\r\n1,000 more than California, which is second, and 1,200 more than\r\nthird-place Texas.\r\nThe\r\n\r\nreport<\/a> was compiled\r\nby\r\n\r\nEnvironmental Entrepreneurs<\/a>,\r\na nonpartisan group of business leaders and investors\r\nthat promotes environmental policies.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nJeff Benzak, a spokesman for Environmental Entrepreneurs, said\r\nGeorgia hasn’t ranked in the top 10 states since the group started\r\nthe ranking in 2012. California and Texas normally lead the list, he\r\nsaid.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nForty clean energy or clean transportation projects were announced\r\nin 19 states, creating more than 9,800 direct jobs, according to the\r\ngroup’s job tracking analysis. The solar industry was the top sector\r\nfor job growth.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\n“Largely due to a big spike in solar projects, this number is\r\nalmost double the number of jobs tracked during the corresponding\r\nquarter in 2014, and roughly equivalent to the fourth quarter\r\n2014,” the report says.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nAnd that’s before\r\nGeorgia’s new solar financing law<\/a>\r\nwent into effect July 1st and\r\nGeorgia Power started selling rooftop solar power<\/a>!\r\n

\r\nWhich would you rather be, Georgia?\r\nNumber 1 in\r\n\r\nmost adults in the state incarceration system to the tune of a billion bucks a year<\/a>?\r\nYet another sucker for\r\nan unnecessary, destructive, and hazardous fracked methane pipeline<\/a>?\r\nOr leading the nation in the fastest growing industry in the world, solar power?\r\n

\r\nHow about we\r\nend the failed war on drugs<\/a>,\r\nstop wasting money locking people up,\r\n\r\ncancel all new pipelines<\/a>,\r\nand get on with leading the world in changing from fossil fuels to solar power?\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s great the three biggest climate change problem countries are finally committing to emissions reductions and other substantial changes, although not enough to, you know, stop global warming from getting even worse. Meanwhile, CO2 emissions did not increase from 2013 to 2014, even though the global economy grew, and this was largely because of renewable […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[47,141,216,8,6687,24],"tags":[5952,398,8719,8745,8753,8701,5929,8702,12,7,6076,8714,6],"class_list":["post-13546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-co2","category-coal","category-georgia","category-pipeline-2","category-solar","tag-brazil","tag-china","tag-climate-change","tag-co2","tag-coal","tag-georgia","tag-global-warming","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-pipeline","tag-solar","tag-valdosta"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-3wu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13549,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13546\/revisions\/13549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}