The Pacific ocean is warming rapidly. This is apparently the early stage of a developing El Nino which will likely lead to record global warmth in the next 2 years.
The day after President Obama announced his plan to cut carbon emissions from U.S. power plants 30% from 2005 levels, China's climate chairman has announced that, for the first time, China will place an absolute cap on carbon emissions. In tandem, these announcements are critical to stopping runaway climate warming because China and the U.S. are the top two global greenhouse gas emitters. With this leadership from the top two emitters the next phase of U.N. climate talks have a much greater chance at success.
Republican critics of Obama's plan to cut emissions by 30% have lost their most powerful talking point - that China's businesses would profit at our expense. This bilateral progress means that China will make a greater commitment to wind and solar technology. The real threat to America's business is Republican opposition to state and federal programs to encourage research and development of renewable energy technologies because that's where the future of the energy business is. Republican intransigence on clean energy will aid Chinese businesses and hurt America.
These announcements by the U.S. and China come at a time when the Pacific ocean and the global tropical oceans are warming rapidly. The developing El Nino event has brought warm water from the deep warm pool in the western Pacific to the coast of the America's. The normal upwelling of cool water along the equator in the eastern Pacific has stopped. These changes in the ocean currents will likely lead to record global warmth in the next two years. Republican opponents to Obama's climate initiative will appear to be facing the wrath of God as El Nino brings a surge of destructive weather across the planet.
The thirty percent cut in emissions is not a difficult target for the U.S. to reach because we are already half way there. The dirtiest and oldest coal plants have been shut down since 2005 because they were unprofitable to maintain. Moreover, the much criticized stimulus promoted energy efficiency measures that reduced carbon emissions painlessly. In fact, these efficiency measures were good for business and consumers because they cut waste. The fact is that Obama's plans to cut carbon emissions will also cut air pollution and air pollution related diseases, benefiting everyone, including big business, because health costs will be reduced. Of course, that won't stop the Chamber of Commerce from making up claims, based on false assumptions, that Obama is wrecking the economy. That's what they do. However, by getting China to agree to cap carbon emissions, Obama has taken the high ground. The coming Republican attack will be like Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. The forces of nature are quite literally aligned against them.
China, the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has pledged to limit its total emissions for the first time.
He Jiankun, chairman of China's Advisory Committee on Climate Change, told a conference in Beijing on Tuesday that an absolute cap on carbon emissions will be introduced later this decade.
"The government will use two ways to control CO2 emissions in the next five-year plan, by intensity and an absolute cap," Reuters reported He, an adviser to the government, as saying.