World
Obama orders reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent
Washington: President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions produced by the federal government by 40 percent over the next decade, a move made as part of his administration’s efforts to fight climate change.
The executive order also set a target for 30 percent of the electricity consumed by the federal government to come from renewable sources.
In addition, according to the White House, the efforts will be complemented with “commitments” by companies such as IBM, GE, Honeywell and Hewlett Packard, which are among the main service providers to the federal government and which will also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama made no statement upon signing the order at the White House, but afterwards he went to the Department of Energy, where he visited a solar panel installation on the building’s roof and emphasised that the US is becoming a “leader” in solar energy production.
“Last year was the biggest year for solar power in our history. And, in fact, the solar industry is adding jobs 10 times faster than the economy as a whole,” said Obama, noting that his administration is proving that “it is possible” for the economy to grow while doing “the right thing” to fight climate change “in a serious way”.
The goals established in the executive order issued on Thursday are “ambitious”, but they are also “achievable”, he said.
According to the White House, the combined efforts of the government and the firms who have made commitments to do so will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 million metric tonnes by 2025 compared with the levels emitted in 2008.
That is equivalent to removing almost 5.5 million automobiles from the nation’s road in one year.
The measures implemented on Thursday strengthen the commitment announced by Obama last November for the US to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025, an effort that is part of an ambitious agreement with China.
This high-level agreement between Washington and Beijing seeks to promote a global pact before the climate change conference to be held in Paris in December.
That conference is aimed at achieving a global agreement on climate change that, starting in 2020, can replace the Kyoto protocol.
It will be the first time in the more than 20 years of climate change negotiations that all countries — both developed and developing — will have to commit themselves to concrete efforts to tackle this global problem.
Nevertheless, some developing countries to date have been reticent to announce significant contributions to the effort, feeling that a certain energy consumption level is inevitable for economic growth and that greater efforts should be made by the richest nations and those that generate the most greenhouse gases.
Last week, US Secretary of State John Kerry asked emerging nations not to repeat “the mistakes” that Washington and other great powers made in the past and to decisively commit themselves this year to reducing carbon emissions and using clean energy sources.
Shanghai’s rich middle class is leading a wave of online dissent over the strict and prolonged lockdowns imposed in various parts of the country. Chinese internet censorship is struggling as patience is wearing thin in many urban centers, coming up with creative forms of online protests.
Social Media Posts Revealing Lockdown Tension in Shanghai
Drawn-out lockdowns are nothing new in China as authorities insist with the nation’s zero-Covid policy since the start of the pandemic. Currently over This time around, however, metropolitan areas like Shanghai are increasingly difficult to keep quiet, given that its more than 25 million residents have seen weeks of total isolation along with food shortages and many other service interruptions.
Dozens of towns and reportedly over 300 million Chinese citizens have been affected by lockdowns of different severity. As expected, urban netizens have been most outspoken over their difficulties by finding creative ways to get around state censorship and bans placed on topics, news comments and spontaneous campaigns.
Shanghai residents have been using mobile proxies and hijacking seemingly unrelated hashtags to talk about healthcare issues, delivery failures and the overall severity of their situation. The “positive energy” that the Chinese government wants to transmit during the recent prolonged series of lockdowns does not come naturally to those counting food supplies and online censors are working hard to filter words, trending topics and undesired social media sharing.
WeChat groups and message threads are under constant monitoring. Posts questioning the zero-Covid approach have been quickly deleted, including by leading Chinese health experts like Dr. Zhong Nanshan. Video footage is soon censored and protests and investigations are quickly made to disappear.
Where this has not worked, officials have exposed banners with warnings and outright threats like “watch your own mouth or face punishment”, while drones have been patrolling the city skies. Yet, if anything, this has led to further tensions and unspoken confrontation with Shanghai’s educated and affluent middle class.
Creative Online Solutions Harnessing Civic Energy
Announcements by Chinese social media that they would be publishing the IP addresses of users who “spread rumors” have not helped either. Tech industry research has shown that much of Asia’s tech-savvy population has a habit of using mobile proxies and other privacy tools, quickly finding workarounds to browse the internet freely and talk to the world about the hottest topics.
The sheer volume of forbidden posts is already a challenge for the very censorship system, experts explain. Unable to track all trending hashtags, state workers overlook topics that speak about the US, Ukraine or other popular news. Linking human rights elsewhere to their situation, Chinese online dissidents establish their informal channels and “hijack” the conversation to share personal or publicly relevant information about the Covid suppression in their town.
Sarcastic and satirical posts still dominate. Others hope to evade the censors by replacing words from famous poems or the national anthem. One thing is certain – social media, when harnessed with the right creativity, has proven its ability to mount pressure on the government in even some of the most strictly controlled tech environments like China.
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