WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United States Climate Alliance

Re:WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United Stat... by alpha_squared on Thursday June 01, 2017 @08:18PM (#14466334)

> the developed country with the highest CO2 emissions per capita is Luxembourg. The US comes second.

You're right, that was an oversight on my part.

> Another surprising thing I learned from the list, US emissions have decreased significantly from 19.6 to 16.4 (tonnes per capita) during the obama administration.

This may actually be, in large part, due to the EPA. It would be interesting to see data for more recent years as well as end of this year (if it's not too soon) to see how it all changes.

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Re:WA, NY and CA Governors Announce Formation of United Stat... by maxerickson on Thursday June 01, 2017 @08:31PM (#14466418)

The decrease in emissions is due to increased emissions requirements on coal plants (lots of smaller ones have been shutting down) and fracking.

Fracking makes cheap natural gas which drives electric generation investment towards natural gas which emits about 1/2 as much carbon per unit of energy as coal.

Low gas prices means that the investments required to meet coal regulations won't ever pay off. Plants shut down.

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