Comment by davmar
4 hours ago
you're comparing years, not standards. i hope you're just foolish and not intentionally disingenuous.
"The 2024 standards required existing coal plants and new gas plants to capture 90 percent of carbon emissions or shut down by 2039, which would have reduced carbon pollution by an estimated 1.38 billion metric tons through 2047"
Before the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, the federal limits were much weaker—and for existing power plants, there was effectively no operative federal CO₂ limit at all.
My point is that after a large change, reversion to the mean should not be treated breathlessly, but viewed in a measured manner.
> Before the 2024 Carbon Pollution Standards, the federal limits were much weaker—and for existing power plants, there was effectively no operative federal CO₂ limit at all.
This is an exaggeration that stretches credulity, since there have been strict limits for decades around secondary outputs that are required by power plant energy production effectively limiting production and emissions (which is the entire point).
The 2024 plan would have reduced annual CO₂ emissions by about 533 million metric tons by 2040. That's roughly equivalent to taking half of all U.S. passenger cars and light-duty trucks off the road.
With the rollback, that reduction will no longer occur. So, this is significant.
Imagine you’re driving headlong toward a cliff. Someone turns the steering wheel a little, not nearly enough, but it’s a small part of an attempt to steer away from the cliff.
Then somebody else comes along and steers back.
How measured should the reaction to this be?