They are instead entwined in California's environmental guidelines, which have decreed that starting in 2003 automakers will have to sell at least 2% of their California fleet as zero-pollution emitters.
Good, too, because, despite those unpleasant facts just days before Copenhagen, the Australian Senate rejected an ambitious emission-trading scheme designed to cut pollution by making emitters pay.
To meet even that weak target using existing mechanisms – like the safeguard mechanism in the Coalition's Direct Action policy – the cap on pollution from large emitters will need to tighten dramatically from 2020, at rate of about 5% each year, RepuTex found.
The megacities are a big draw on energy resources, and are mass emitters of pollution.
The legislation would limit emissions for virtually all sectors of the economy, but would allow swapping of pollution permits among carbon emitters.
More important, they proposed to tighten the rules for allocating pollution allowances to make emitters pay the government for these allowances instead of getting them for free.
There are some worthy energy initiatives that could achieve modest reductions in emissions, but the budget is silent on what Obama will do to aggressively reduce carbon pollution by the biggest emitters, like power plants and automobiles.
But the European Union's emissions rose 1.4% in 2015, against a backdrop of long term declines in pollution, while another major emitter, India, saw emissions rise 5.2%.
In the wake of China's rapid industrialization and urban growth, observers have tended to focus on China's status as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter, air pollution in its main cities and the impact all this has on public health.
Australia is one of the world's largest emitters of carbon pollution, and the largest per capita.
The two nations are the world's largest emitters of the pollution blamed for global warming, but so far China has resisted calls to set specific caps on emissions or to eliminate tariffs on clean energy technology that the United States and other countries would like to sell them.
