Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Why the U.S. Can't Stop Climate Change Alone (In 2 Graphs)

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Why the U.S. Can't Stop Climate Change Alone (In 2 Graphs)

by Jordan Weissmann

President Obama's election night reference to global warming kindled a bit of hope among liberals that his administration might make a concerted effort to tackle this issue in its second term. And unless we all plan on getting used to an annual superstorm season, we should hope so.
But here's a reminder, courtesy of a recent World Resources Institute report on coal consumption, that whatever the U.S. does to tackle climate change, our efforts will be for naught unless they're part of a global effort. Coal fired power plants are the top contributor to worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. And the future of coal will not be decided, by and large, in the United States, which currently consumed about 13 percent of the worldwide total in 2010. Instead, it's in the hands of China, which burned up 46 percent of it. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/11/why-the-us-cant-stop-climate-change-alone-in-2-graphs/265490/