Perhaps those goods shouldn't be made in China, an ocean or two away from where they are needed, under lax emissions laws. If we held China to the same standard as the US and EU, some of that problem would go away. It wouldn't just make fly-over country happy. Huge container ships do not run on solar power. They burn huge amounts of heavy fuel oil, which is nearly tar and not too far from being coal.
China can be so cheap because everything is in the same place. IC production, PCB production, them being combined, device assembly, etc.
It would be far more expensive to ship all the parts separately.
Even more expensive to just ship the raw material from china to where it is needed.
And with expensive I mean both in terms of climate and money.
Moving any part of the supply chain tends to encourage the other parts to move. If part production moved, then both mining and device production would have an increased incentive to move. If mining moved, part production would have an incentive to move, and if that moved then device production would have an incentive to move. It all works both ways, with suppliers and customers tending to move toward each other.
So yes, we can put everything back in the USA, and it can be affordable, but we face an uphill battle. The battle is only lost if you give up trying.
So, how are you going to mine stuff in the US that the US has no resource deposits of?
I want to see you move rare earth production into the US.
Another big source is fly ash, which we get from burning coal. This actually has a decently high concentration of the more urgently needed elements. The more coal we burn, the more fly ash we have. Burn more, and get rare earth elements as a bonus.
The amounts needed are tiny. The only trouble with importing from China is that China considers control of rare earth elements to be part of a strategy to dominate the world. China restricts exports, and threatens to restrict them more. This is of course a national security issue for every other country in the world.
What, generating pollution when its effects on the planet weren't understood? Now we know better, right?
> The fact that the agreement only commits governments to keeping warming below an increase of 2 degrees, rather than a much safer firm target of 1.5 degrees, was lobbied for and won by the United States.
> The fact that the agreement left it to individual nations to determine how much they were willing to do to reach that temperature target, allowing them to come to Paris with commitments that collectively put us on a disastrous course towards more than 3 degrees of warming, was lobbied for and won by the United States.
> The fact that the agreement treats even these inadequate commitments as non-binding, which means governments apparently do not have anything to fear if they ignore their commitments, is something else that was lobbied for and won by the United States.
> The fact that the agreement specifically prohibits poor countries from seeking damages for the costs of climate disasters was lobbied for and won by the United States.
> The fact that it is an “agreement” or an “accord” and not a treaty — the very thing that makes it possible for Trump to stage his action-movie slow-mo walk away, world in flames behind him — was lobbied for and won by the United States.
This accord already is a massive insult to developing countries, who give up the right to hold those responsible who caused climate effects on their country. India can't sue the West for the costs that climate change, and the refugee crisis in Bangladesh will cost. India can't use any of the quick industrialization concepts that the West used, at massive cost to the environment. All committments are voluntary.
The west has spent centuries polluting the planet, and gaining an economic advantage. And now China and India are asking for a few years — not even a decade — in an entirely voluntary agremeent.
And yet, it's somehow unfair to the US? This is laughable. And I say that as a German willing to pay my 0.40€/kWh electricity.