[HN Gopher] Companies are buying large numbers of carbon offsets...
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Companies are buying large numbers of carbon offsets that don't cut
emissions
Author : prostoalex
Score : 155 points
Date : 2022-09-09 16:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| WalterBright wrote:
| The right way to reduce CO2 emissions is to simply tax the carbon
| content of fuels as they are sold from the refinery. Increase the
| tax until the usage goes down.
|
| Simple, effective, efficient, and boring. And hard to virtue
| signal one's way out of.
| yongjik wrote:
| 28% of Americans flat out oppose America becoming carbon
| neutral by 2050 [1], and that's before we even ask them how
| much they're willing to pay. Only 31% supports phasing out
| fossil fuels completely.
|
| I don't think "virtue signaling" (or its lack) is the problem.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/03/01/americans-
| lar...
| david422 wrote:
| But why don't they want to phase it out? There could be some
| other reasons like: 1. a job tied to fossil
| fuels 2. concerns that energy prices will go up without
| fossil fuels 3. lack of alternatives for things like
| trucks etc.
|
| And/or change is scary and 28% probably just don't want to
| change.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| 4. Religious beliefs. 5. Trolling the libs.
| 6. Belief that carbon taxation is a scheme to impoverish
| their nation for social justice. 7. Belief that
| global warming will be good for their community.
| criddell wrote:
| How do you sell that to voters?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Use the monies to correspondingly reduce the sales tax.
| landemva wrote:
| Eliminate personal income tax.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The sales tax taxes everyone, so everyone would get a
| benefit from the carbon tax.
| landemva wrote:
| Does compliance with personal income tax not apply to
| certain people? Even poor W-2 people have to sign and
| mail a yearly form to get over-withheld payroll
| deductions refunded.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Something like 40% of Americans pay no income tax.
| criddell wrote:
| And in the five states with no sales tax?
| it_citizen wrote:
| Just like Canada did. By redistributing the tax revenue. Look
| up Carbon fee with dividends.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Give all of the proceeds from the tax back to the people.
| Effectively, instead of all carbon-emitters paying the
| government, make it so that high-carbon-emitting people have
| to pay the low-carbon-emitting people.
| it_citizen wrote:
| And it reduces inequalities given that the 20% richest
| pollute way more than the 80% poorest.
| Aunche wrote:
| Unfortunately, consumption taxes are always regressive,
| and a carbon tax would be no different. Even if you
| happened to receive more from a carbon dividend than you
| would pay in carbon taxes, you would "pay" for it by
| having to sacrifice goods and services that you otherwise
| would have consumed. I do support a carbon tax, but I
| think it's important to be realistic about its effects if
| we want it to be politically sustainable.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Only if you are currently emitting more than the post-tax
| average emission. If you are already below average, you
| can emit the same amount and get paid.
|
| Poor people are generally emitting well below the average
| currently. They take fewer flights, have smaller houses
| and buy less stuff in general. With current levels of
| emissions, they would be getting paid without reducing
| emissions at all.
|
| Eventually after the rest of society reduces emissions,
| they might have to reduce emissions, but that would only
| be after the rest of society sacrifices much more
| consumption.
| Aunche wrote:
| >Only if you are currently emitting more than the post-
| tax average emission. If you are already below average,
| you can emit the same amount and get paid.
|
| You need to consider the downstream effects of the tax.
| The oil can only get taxed once, but the effects are
| compounded throughout the entire economy. For example,
| truck drivers would see dramatically increased expenses.
| For examples, truck drivers would have to pass on the
| cost of the fuel to transport freight. Meanwhile, other
| drivers will be forced to quit, which reduces our total
| freight throughput, which makes shipping even more
| expensive.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| You could scale the refund according to income.
| kelnos wrote:
| Does it, though? For example, I would expect lower-income
| folks to be more likely to have older, less-fuel-
| efficient cars.
| lkbm wrote:
| They also fly less, have smaller cars/apartments, buy
| cars less frequently, and buy less stuff in general.
|
| I think air flight is typically my largest source of CO2
| emissions, and certainly will be this year.
| bumby wrote:
| It does according to some studies.
|
| "The trend is clear: Emissions generally rise with
| wealth...The richest 1%--... earning $109,000 a year--are
| by far the fastest-growing source of emissions."[1]
|
| And at least according to that article, it's not due to
| international disparities in wealth.
|
| "people's emissions within countries now overwhelms the
| country-to-country disparities."
|
| [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-wealth-carbon-
| emissi...
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Problem is that the people who consume less than the
| average amount of carbon are generally located in cities
| and therefore already support liberal policies. You need to
| convince the conservative leaning suburbs, which are the
| hardest hit by a revenue neutral carbon tax because they
| have high incomes and don't live in high density areas.
| hedora wrote:
| Be honest about how said voters' houses are going to be
| worthless when Phoenix runs out of water, California burns
| down, and Miami/NYC/New Orleans are under water.
|
| Also, be honest about how we're rapidly barreling toward the
| end of economic growth because the weather keeps destroying
| industrial and agricultural production.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The only way Phoenix will run out of water is if the
| government does not allow the price of water to be the free
| market price.
| wizofaus wrote:
| What exactly is the "free market price" for water? Are
| you suggesting reticulated water supply for a city should
| be achieved via competing free enterprises? Is there
| anywhere in the world where that's worked well?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The free market price is the price set by Supply &
| Demand.
| wizofaus wrote:
| That's a non-answer unless customers can meaningfully
| choose where/how to obtain their regular water supply and
| how much to pay for it. I'm genuinely curious if that's
| true in any modern cities.
|
| Edit: Santiago in Chile seems to be close to such a case.
| Interestingly, 70% of the population want to see a return
| to public ownership of water rights. And it's pretty hard
| to find evidence having private ownership of water rights
| is helping ensure long term supply for all.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| If they drain the aquifers and a bad drought hits for
| long enough, they'll run out of _affordable_ water.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| The voters will cast a judgement about whether that is
| hysterical nonsense or not.
| nathanaldensr wrote:
| Sorry, but most people don't believe that or you. Try
| reading sources outside your bubble.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Reputable sources explaining that climate change won't
| destroy trillions of dollar of assets and GDP? Seems like
| I am in that bubble too. Could you lay them down please?
| kelnos wrote:
| True or false, reputable sources or not, there are still
| plenty of people in the US -- enough to affect the
| outcomes of elections, at least -- who just do not and
| will not believe it.
| aydyn wrote:
| Reputable sources say that "California will burn down"
| and "NYC will be under water"? Extraordinary claims
| require extraordinary proof.
|
| Unless OP is just using hyperbole to make a point, in
| which case maybe they shouldn't.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I agree so hard. But it's like Georgism. There's a clear path
| forward in economic theory, but the truth is that there is a
| divergence between Stated and Revealed Preferences. The former
| say "We are worried about Anthropogenic Climate Change". The
| latter say "We will fire you if you act like we care about
| Anthropogenic Climate Change to the extent that it causes
| discomfort".
|
| This is, in many ways, the ideal for most people. One can say
| "Climate Change is really important" while blaming "The
| Corporations" for what they're doing and simultaneously blaming
| the President for "raising the price of gas".
|
| That way you can appear virtuous while not sacrificing
| anything.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The vast bulk of climate policy appears to be virtue
| signalling. Like EV cars having "zero emissions", never mind
| the coal power plants needed to charge the batteries.
| renewiltord wrote:
| California's electricity mix made EVs pretty good
| (especially with timed charging) but I believe you are
| right in general. A classic example is environmentalists
| who want sprawl over dense cities.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Another example is blocking permits for natural gas
| pipelines. This has resulted in increased coal plant
| usage.
|
| Coal emits twice the CO2 per energy than natural gas
| does.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Even coal power plants release less carbon per mile driven
| than ICE cars.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Even for brown Coal? And accounting for embedded
| emissions etc.?
| WalterBright wrote:
| Less, but not much less.
| thehappypm wrote:
| Unfortunately this doesn't really work in a democracy. It's
| just going to end up being too unpopular. The next president is
| just going to run on "I will cancel the carbon credits!" And
| then win the election in a landslide and cancel them.
| WalterBright wrote:
| We already tax everything else, _including_ fuel.
| thehappypm wrote:
| And those taxes are extremely unpopular! And for a carbon
| tax to work the tax would need to be punitive.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| It might feel punitive, but the entire point of pigouvian
| taxes is that people were taking advantage of not having
| to pay for externalities. Not having the tax is punitive
| to the people who are consuming less than the average
| energy.
| WalterBright wrote:
| All taxes are unpopular, unless they mostly or completely
| fall on other people.
|
| That hasn't stopped taxes in a democracy.
| DennisP wrote:
| One option is fee-and-dividend, which pays all the revenue
| back out to the population, equal amount per capita.
|
| You still have an incentive to reduce emissions, because your
| dividend is the same regardless and you can reduce your fees.
| And since most people's net emissions are less than average,
| most people come out ahead.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Net over a year that's all well and good but the extra wait
| for that dividend payment to come in will be rough for a
| lot of people.
| DennisP wrote:
| Dividends don't have to go out annually. Estimated taxes
| would come in quarterly, and it wouldn't be hard for the
| government to pay out as frequently as social security
| checks. Each period, adjust payments to make up for
| discrepancies in the last period.
| Aunche wrote:
| At the end of the day, any sort of tax is going to generate
| a dead weight loss. The amount of money that gets
| distributed to you with a carbon dividend inevitably is
| going to be less than your additional tax burden or the
| consumer surplus from the goods and services you otherwise
| would have bought without the tax. Of course, you make very
| good arguments about why the dead weight loss is absolutely
| dwarfed by the negative externalities of fossil fuel
| emissions. Even if you don't consider climate change, air
| pollution is a contributor of over 100,000 deaths in
| America alone. However, this point is moot if people aren't
| willing to act on those externalities.
| adonovan wrote:
| I've been telling people how great this idea is for years,
| because it's simple for organizations to plan around as it
| gradually ratchets up, easy to administer, and sort of
| progressive in the sense that the poor benefit more
| (relatively) than the rich.
|
| But this year the penny finally dropped for me how
| demoralizingly futile it is to make rational carbon policy
| in the US by talking about its merits. The success of the
| Inflation Reduction Act ($370bn for climate) was entirely
| due to a cunning political hack: not taxing individuals
| (only corporations) and reducing the deficit at the same
| time (by staffing the IRS to enforce existing tax
| collection laws), so that it could be acceptable to the
| holdout conservative Democrats.
| [deleted]
| nwj wrote:
| I _think_ I 've heard this option called a Pigovian tax
| before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax.
| oliwary wrote:
| What about introducing a variable environmental toll at the
| border? It could be based on the environmental rules of the
| exporting country and the expected emissions of the
| production and transport of the good.
|
| Ideally, this would have the following effects:
|
| * Make local manufacturing more competitive - introducing
| only local regulations gives companies a big incentive to
| produce in less stringently regulated areas. Correcting this
| could bring back manufacturing and be politically popular.
|
| * Give companies an incentive to develop sustainable
| processes.
|
| * Give companies an incentive to lobby other governments to
| introduce more stringent rules.
|
| * Align cost of goods with actual externalities, motivating
| people to buy more sustainable products.
|
| * The toll revenue could be used to improve carbon saving
| initiatives, such as public transport and sequestration.
| landemva wrote:
| Putting America on economic parity with manufacturing
| polluters like China and Mexico is reasonable. The
| environmental tariffs would be helpful to stop companies
| from green-washing by manufacturing the iGadgets in
| polluting countries.
| hedora wrote:
| Taxing at the refinery (or even well head) seems reasonable,
| but it might be difficult to set up the tariffs properly.
|
| Instead, they could tax gasoline at $1/gallon (and do similar
| things for other greenhouse gas sources, such as coal, meat and
| concrete), and use the resulting funds for carbon capture.
|
| If you want a progressive tax, tax new cars at $2 * 200,000
| miles / EPA combined miles per gallon. This will instantly make
| all new cars carbon neutral or negative at the tailpipe.
| Similarly, you could also tax embodied carbon on all new goods.
|
| The $1/gallon of gas computation works like this:
|
| Burning a gallon of gas produces 20lbs of CO2. (The O2 in the
| CO2 comes from the atmosphere, explaining why the CO2 weighs
| more than the gasoline.)
|
| A ton is 2000 lbs, so 100 gallons of gas emits a ton of CO2.
|
| Atmospheric carbon capture looks like it will cost roughly $100
| / ton at scale, or $1/gallon of gasoline.
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| How do you do this, without hurting people with 'clunkers'
| who need said 'clunker' to get to work or the market (because
| they live in a food desert), and can't really afford to
| upgrade to greener living because cost of living takes their
| whole paycheck, and they'd be homeless if they can't afford
| gas or their car breaks down unless they just started living
| out of their car?
|
| I'm hesitant to think taxing gas at the pump makes any sense,
| I think maybe taxing diesel though could be a better thing
| because diesel is used more commercially by big rigs, which
| is a tax on commercial industries rather than consumers. Jet
| Fuel and such should have a very high tax, because that's
| something most people don't use, and isn't really a
| 'necessity'. Fuel at ports should also be taxed, and I think
| ports/airports should be under some global climate action
| 'congress' or something that ensures equal taxation and
| carbon offsets globally are being applied.
|
| Though, if we were to use all the tax revenue or at least
| maybe 50% for UBI to say anyone with < 100k annual salary, I
| think it wouldn't matter if we taxed everything more evenly
| including gas at the pump, in fact that'd probably encourage
| more support for taxing carbon offsets since much of it goes
| to taxpayers as cash in their pocket.
| njarboe wrote:
| Return all of the CO2 tax to the people. Everyone gets a
| check for the same amount each quarter.
| WalterBright wrote:
| We already tax gas at the pump.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's so much easier to just tax it at the production site,
| because such production is pretty concentrated in a handful
| of sites.
|
| Taxing the C also properly accounts for different fuels
| having different energy per C atom.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is effectively the corporations carbon taxing themselves,
| because they know a carbon tax is the sensible answer, but
| politics is holding it up in certain regions.
|
| Just like the US car manufacturers don't really want Democrats
| and Repbulicans raising and lowering emissions standards every
| four years, big corps (other than coal producers maybe) don't
| really want the carbon tax to go up and down on a political
| whim. This is basically them setting aside the carbon tax
| money, and applying the carbon tax pressure to themselves
| internally, so they end up in the same place as a carbon tax
| would lead them.
|
| As with a pure cabon tax, in many ways it doesn't matter what
| the money is spent on. As long as there is a financial
| disincentive for people to burn carbon when there's an
| alternative, it all kind of works out.
| opportune wrote:
| I agree completely. It is much easier to directly capture the
| externalities at the most centralized and traceable point
| (production/refining, and importing) than to have a
| decentralized system of varying standards and shadiness. If you
| tax carbon at the source there is no nuance and it's much
| harder to cheat.
|
| The problem does become partly a tragedy of the commons though.
| If eg China doesn't tax carbon at all internally, then we'd
| need to figure out how to appropriately tax the emissions of
| imported finished goods so as not to incentivize them to
| release CO2 as a competitive advantage. Even if we do that,
| they may still trade with another country that doesn't tax
| imported goods either. One benefit for carbon offsets is they
| can in theory be used to incentivize cross-border emissions
| reductions without requiring the poorer countries to sacrifice
| anything.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Right, the biggest problem with a carbon tax is that it would
| lead to industries that are heavily reliant on energy to move
| to defecting countries. Do we really want North korea to
| become the epicenter of crypto mining?
| WalterBright wrote:
| We're already implementing ineffective green policies that
| put the US at a competitive disadvantage. At least C taxing
| would be effective.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The US has several carbon fees/taxes.
|
| https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/map_data
| DesiLurker wrote:
| Agreed though it me be difficult to make it acceptable to
| masses, especially poorer folks who may be push towards voting
| red and effectively nullifying such change in short order. It
| may be more palatable to make it revenue neutral and give the
| money back as refund based on income.
|
| Another way to think about it is the right price of carbon is
| (in steady state) is the cost to remove the equivalant amount
| of carbon if we dont want to worsen the situation. So a small
| portion of this revenue (carbon-tax) could be directed towards
| subsidizing properly vetted carbon removal techs. of course
| this number will be high initially so we'll have to taper in
| the change but it will also give chance for better public
| acceptance and maturity for carbon removal tech.
| natch wrote:
| Naive in the extreme. See other comments about democracy. Also,
| see history about revolts.
|
| The best way is to make the alternatives to anything you want
| to get rid of overwhelmingly more attractive to decision making
| entities (people, companies, etc.), who will then choose with
| their free will. Not easy to do, but some are working on it.
| asiachick wrote:
| Yes, and put millions of people out of work so they can starve
| and live in tents
|
| I'm not saying your wrong, only that raising the price of fuel
| raises the price of everything else. Fuel prices go up,
| shipping prices go up, shipping prices go up, product prices go
| up, product prices go up, less people can afford to life.
| Company expenses go up, company looks for ways to cut expenses,
| often by lowering employment, etc...
|
| VS coming up with cleaner and cheaper ways to fuel things, then
| everything goes in the other direction. Cheaper fuel = cheaper
| shipping = cheaper products = more poor people can eat.
| Companies make more money they can hire more people, etc...
|
| I know that's easier said than done, just pointing out raising
| the price of fuel is not a simple solution beacuse it has
| extreme consequences.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| There are a ton of taxes and fees that could be reduced
| because they're replaced by the revenue. Sales taxes and
| payroll taxes, for starters.
| WalterBright wrote:
| We tax everything else without wrecking the economy.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| Europe has a carbon price and it hasn't wrecked their
| economy. They of course have other energy related problems
| but those aren't related to their carbon price.
| endominus wrote:
| I'm always wary of just-so stories. It's easy to pull them in
| any direction one wants. Cheaper fuel -> lower prices ->
| greater consumption -> more reliance on extraction of limited
| resources -> less ability to move off those resources/find
| alternatives without destroying the global economy ->
| disaster when we hit "peak whatever." The pandemic has shown
| how fragile the global economy has become due to the massive
| network of linkages that have grown between what could be
| relatively self-sufficient countries. A ship crashing in
| single canal sent commodity prices worldwide through the roof
| for months!
|
| There was a comic I read a while back during the 2008
| financial crisis, describing the banking sector as a group of
| wizards building a massive tower in a town. Eventually, it
| grows too large, wobbling and nearing collapse. The wizards
| beg the townspeople for help. The townspeople say this is the
| natural consequence of their actions, but the wizards counter
| that should their tower fall, it is large enough to do
| significant damage to the town as well. Thus galvanized, the
| town gathers together and shores up the foundations of the
| tower, securing it. At which point the wizards promptly go
| back to making it even taller and grander, because no one
| ever learns a lesson.
|
| People are extremely averse to direct negative consequences
| of actions, but are much more nonchalant about indirect
| negative consequences, especially of inaction (see; the
| trolley problem). There is always hope of a miracle cure.
| That is the thrust of your argument; strong action now may
| fix the issue, but cause widespread suffering in the short
| term. Whereas the status quo is a slowly boiling pot, and
| perhaps someone will find a way to turn off the heat while we
| languish here, but more likely someone won't and waiting will
| lead to an even worse economic outcome when global supply
| chains are disrupted even more forcefully than by a simple
| tax hike.
| bosswipe wrote:
| But the politics suck so it'll never happen.
| ars wrote:
| It's is not simple at all to tax fuel at the source!!
|
| You have completely forgotten about import/export. If you tax
| only American fuel, then American exports become very
| expensive, while imports become cheap.
|
| Guess what happens next?
|
| Setting up a tax scheme for fuel that taking into account
| import/export is incredibly complicated, your system is
| probably the most complex solution there is!
| JohnClark1337 wrote:
| BryLuc wrote:
| tdaltonc wrote:
| If you're looking for an alternative to the (very problematic)
| carbon offset (CO), check out Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).
| COs are designed to incentives reducing CO2 in the atmosphere,
| but verification and traceability problems make it hard for them
| to achieve that goal. RECs are designed to incentivize the
| construction of renewable energy based power plants. They're
| easier to monitor because verification is handled by grid
| operators checking the number on the meter.
|
| We (Jasmine (YC-S22)) (https://www.jasmine.energy/) are building
| a RECs exchange. Governments handle REC verification. We handle
| liquidity, efficiency, and traceability.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Though ironically, this is exactly what is being attacked by
| the article.
|
| They're arguing that giving money to renewables producers
| should only be done, if the renewable wouldn't otherwise be a
| viable business, and that some credits are from older renewable
| energy projects that got grandfathered in, before the offset
| organisations decided that they could spend their money more
| effectively elsewhere since the renewables would get built
| anyway.
| tdaltonc wrote:
| The UN's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is very different
| from Renewable Energy Certificate programs. CDM project, as a
| type off Carbon Offset, are supposed to be targeted have
| "additionality," meaning, as you said, that the project
| wouldn't exist if not for the subsidy.
|
| RECs are supposed to be universal because they're about
| tracking the production/consumption of all renewable energy
| on the grid. That universality makes fraud much harder.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Unbundled RECs have the exact same "additionality" issue,
| and I'm assuming if you're creating a market for all
| renewable energy on the grid, you are talking about
| unbundled RECs.
|
| This quote on your site appears to confirm that:
|
| > Most generators don't know they are accruing valuable
| credits they can sell. If you are a generator selling these
| credits you could off-set the cost of your system.
| jms703 wrote:
| Where does the money go?
| [deleted]
| j_walter wrote:
| This has been known in the industry for years. Everyone is
| pushing companies to be carbon neutral, but that doesn't really
| mean money is going where it should...it just looks good on
| paper.
|
| Unless companies have moral people in their upper management and
| are doing their due diligence when selecting offsets then the
| money is just going to other corporate profits and not making any
| impact at all. I know this for a fact since my company is carbon
| neutral and I also oversee the review process for not just carbon
| offsets but also RECs. You can thank the government for little
| oversight in the carbon offset process that they developed.
| WastingMyTime89 wrote:
| Yes but companies who overly rely on carbon offsets are
| shooting themselves in the foot. With emission targets
| gradually lowering and regulations becoming more and more
| ambitious, offsets will become more expensive.
|
| Not investing into meaningfully reducing emissions now is a
| glaring lack of forward planning and due diligence. I fully
| expect some companies to tank in the next twenty years because
| of their current failure to adapt.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> With emission targets gradually lowering and regulations
| becoming more and more ambitious, offsets will become more
| expensive._
|
| Oh _legitimate_ carbon offsets will be in short supply, which
| you 'd expect to raise prices. No doubt about that.
|
| But fraudulent carbon offsets? Those can be produced in
| whatever quantities buyers are willing to pay for.
| celtain wrote:
| >You can thank the government for little oversight in the
| carbon offset process that they developed.
|
| Carbon offsetting is a government program? I thought this was
| pretty much all the work of private companies, with buyers
| doing so voluntarily and providers self-regulating (hence the
| problems). Is that not the case?
| moffkalast wrote:
| > are doing their due diligence
|
| Well they actually are doing due diligence, the problem is they
| have a different objective: find the most carbon credits to buy
| for the least money. It's not like they actually care about
| being neutral, if they did they'd cut emissions instead of
| pushing it onto others. It's all PR and complying with
| government regulations.
|
| Unfortunately the legit sources aren't gonna be a good choice
| for that goal.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Agreed. We just need to tax carbon or the externality of
| emissions more. It doesn't make sense for companies to figure
| out climate/energy science out on their own anyways. Its
| completely silly to expect that every mid-size company figure
| this out on their own and voluntary pay more than their
| competitors and lose any pricing edge.
| liamconnell wrote:
| Great point. I have a comment below that goes into some of
| the difficulty with this distinction.
|
| To be fair, many small/mid-sized companies that act as
| suppliers to larger companies would basically have the
| larger company doing the carbon accounting for them.
|
| For large companies, I think it would look more like an
| accounting capability than a climate/energy science one.
| The carbon credit market might become regulated with some
| accreditation system after these wild west years.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| The money equivalency is the problem, not sure taxing it
| will work either, only because will set the tax too low, or
| it will get raised too high and be used to do something
| unrelated. It doesn't matter if they pay enough to
| sequester equivalent carbon, it matters if it actually gets
| done. What if we tax, but in the form of stable or usable
| carbon? If you emit X tons of co2 then you have to bring Y
| tons of coal, diesel, crude, diamonds, graphite, preserved
| wood or whatever, to government sequestration sites, or pay
| someone else to do so. Laws to prevent the government from
| using the stuff, and you'd drive up the price of fossil
| fuels simultaneously to account for their externality as
| well.
| delroth wrote:
| > or it will get raised too high and be used to do
| something unrelated
|
| That matters very little. Carbon taxation is a Pigovian
| tax, and just making emitting CO2 more expensive creates
| strong incentives to stop emitting CO2. It also makes
| "green" alternatives comparatively cheaper.
|
| In fact, many proponents of carbon taxation support equal
| redistribution of the tax money to everyone (e.g. as tax
| credits). Taxpayers polluting less than average would see
| their tax burden decrease, while those polluting more
| than average would be paying more and thus be
| incentivized to change their behavior.
|
| (Of course, it's not that easy in the real world, some
| behavior can be extremely hard to change without
| help/subventions/large investments. But these helps don't
| have to be tied to carbon taxation.)
| liamconnell wrote:
| > government sequestration sites
|
| Well that would drive up demand for fossil fuels and
| profits for extraction companies, leading to more
| extraction. Is this a real idea (proposed policy in a
| country) or just something you wrote down?
| landemva wrote:
| > tax carbon or the externality of emissions more.
|
| Start first with usage of private jets or TV sets?
| vkou wrote:
| Start by taxing carbon by the pound, and let the market
| figure out how to optimize around it.
| [deleted]
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| No kidding? Wow, who could have predicted!
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Wait, financialization isn't the solution to every problem?
| Shocker
| amelius wrote:
| What if we didn't use plain old finance to solve the problem,
| but used smart contracts that can be traced down to the
| originator of the problem, then fine the entire responsible
| chain if there is a violation?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| Or, hear me out, what if we just used the plain old contracts
| that already exist... this article came out of an
| investigation of plain old contracts.
| amelius wrote:
| Plain old contracts != smart contracts
| Ensorceled wrote:
| That's my point, this could be accomplished with plain
| old contracts ...
| DocTomoe wrote:
| It would be, if people were actually willing to put their money
| where their mouth is and invest some of their own cash to take
| certificates off the market.
|
| Apparently, people are unwilling to do so in meaningful
| numbers.
|
| Ergo: They do not see this as an actual problem, which means
| problem is solved. We just need to accept that.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| But carbon credits were never marketed as a way for people to
| retire carbon debt - they were presented as a way to
| implement the 'polluter pays' principle using the 'proven'
| mechanisms of the market.
|
| I do think markets are a very useful social technology for
| allocating resources. But they can also be abused for
| distributing liability and they're slow. There's a reason
| most polities abandon the market model for urgent tasks like
| firefighting.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| In all fairness, that sounds a lot like "The citizenry is
| too stupid to get it, so now we force our will upon them."
| or, and that's even less charitable, "the section of the
| citizenry that wants carbon emission deceleration does want
| others to pay for it."
|
| At some point, I think we need to decide if we want to
| continue the world trying to be democratic, or if we want
| more-or-less benevolent, eco-dictatorships.
| crackercrews wrote:
| > These days, the cost of generating electricity from such
| sources (wind/solar) is roughly on par with that of fossil fuels.
|
| I've never seen a cost analysis that takes into account the
| unreliability of sources that rely on sun or wind. I don't know
| exactly how a proper model would account for these factors, but
| surely ignoring the unreliability isn't the right answer.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Do you demand with downtime for coal, for fixing the shoot? The
| scrubber? The ash removal?
|
| Or for hydro? With dam work? Generator replacement (explosion
| at Hoover dam this year)
|
| Or nuclear, for fuel rod changeouts?
|
| While solar has more nightly downtime at non-peak demand, both
| wind and solar are often configured in volumes and geo
| distributions that reduce maintenance outage (a function of
| lower output per unit)
| crackercrews wrote:
| All of these examples sound like they can be scheduled. You
| cannot schedule the sun and wind. You can predict the sun of
| course and it's nice that it sometimes lines up with peak
| usage.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| What do you mean by unreliability?
|
| One of the reasons that solar projects are so easy to finance
| is because of their predictability and the fact they can be
| accurately predicted to correlate with peak demand periods
| years in the future.
|
| You only hit problems when you are no longer burning fossil
| fuels and so have no more to turn off. And that's a good
| problem to have.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| They are reliable only on average and on long time scales. On
| one particularly abnormal weather day, do you just say:
| "sorry, we only have 50% power today".
| crackercrews wrote:
| > What do you mean by unreliability?
|
| I'm referring to the fact that the wind is not reliable or
| even predictable. The sun is more predictable, but weather
| can greatly affect solar power generation.
|
| It is nice that the sun is up during part of daily peak
| demand and is strongest during the season when AC is heavily
| used. But IIRC peak demand happens several hours after solar
| panels are generating peak energy.
|
| > You only hit problems when you are no longer burning fossil
| fuels and so have no more to turn off. And that's a good
| problem to have.
|
| The point is that if you are looking at the cost of building
| a solar or wind farm you have to account for the fact that
| you cannot shut down another power source one-for-one.
|
| If you have to pay for the new source and keep the old source
| online then the new source is by definition not the same
| price as the old source.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| > But IIRC peak demand happens several hours after solar
| panels are generating peak energy.
|
| No, peak 'net demand' happens later, because solar has
| reduced the actual demand peak. This is like saying "eating
| food just made my hunger peak later"
|
| > If you have to pay for the new source and keep the old
| source online then the new source is by definition not the
| same price as the old source.
|
| Yes, but the old source likely has high fuel costs, so when
| you stop burning the fuel, you not only save carbon and
| pollution, you save money.
|
| This isn't particularly complicated.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Your first claim seems plausible, but apparently is
| wrong. Peak demand appears to be after noon all over. In
| some places it's several hours after. [1]
|
| Your second point doesn't make any sense because the cost
| of fuel is already factored into the original analysis
| that supposedly equates the cost of renewable and non-
| renewable energy generation. If you want to mention that
| cost again, then I would mention again that supply
| crunches raise the cost of construction of solar and wind
| farms. All of these costs were already accounted for so
| it doesn't make sense to bring them up again.
|
| 1: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=42915
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The grid reported peak doesn't include home rooftop or
| other behind-the-meter solar, that's why the California
| grid demand peak has shifted later over the last few
| years, as well as (but not as much as) the net peak that
| doesn't count the utility scale solar.
|
| You can also choose when you want the peak to occur to
| some degree, by positioning your panels in both location
| and direction. Semi-random alignment combined with solar
| noon happening over a hour for a timezone means the
| 'peak' is often rounded and flattened, and shifted in the
| direction of the solar compared with the load.
|
| e.g. if you have a coastal area with demand on the coast
| and utility solar mostly inland, then you get a different
| timeshift between load and supply depending on where the
| coast is positioned in a West-East direction.
|
| I'm not sure what you're trying to argue regarding price,
| but since renewables are cheaper than even running
| existing fossil fuel plants, I'm not sure it matters.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Imagine a salesman comes to your door selling residential
| cellular internet. He says it will cost the same as your
| existing wired internet, and will offer the same speeds.
|
| The benefit is that it will have a lower carbon footprint
| because the ISP's power is provided exclusively by wind
| and solar. The downside is that it will only run when
| there is wind power or solar power available.
|
| Would you make the switch?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| We dont need weird analogies, We're rolling out
| renewables across the world, at an astounding pace
| because its cheaper and better, and continues to get
| cheaper and better.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| This is only an issue once we stop having electricity sources
| that can be turned on reasonably quickly when wind or sun is
| under producing (such as natural gas and, to some extent, hydro
| electric).
|
| Since wind/solar is still a small part of the overall
| contribution, there is no need to model unreliability.
|
| Ideally this would BECOME an issue in the future.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Ask the western US if it is an issue right now. If you don't
| hear back it's because their power is out.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I didn't realize California etc. had hit the level of
| dependency on solar/wind where this could be a factor. Good
| on them.
| crackercrews wrote:
| The people who lost power and couldn't cool themselves
| down in 100 degree weather might not agree with your
| congratulations from afar. They might also not like that
| their energy costs are dramatically higher than even in
| neighboring states.
|
| But if it makes you feel better, I guess that makes it
| all good, right?
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I was being sarcastic. California gets 17% of their
| electricity from solar and 8% wind, but their current
| issues are during a sunny heat wave so solar should be
| going like gangbusters.
| mltvc wrote:
| There are a lot of valid criticisms to be made about the
| voluntary carbon market but at least it's something that is being
| done right now.
|
| At Sylvera, a carbon offset rating agency, we create very
| thorough analyses of all projects issuing offsets. Based on
| scores for carbon score, additionality and permanence we create
| ratings that buyers can trust to avoid being scammed. This
| transparency is fundamental to the functioning of this market.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Tax fuel sources by amount of carbon dioxide that they release.
| It will increase the cost of electricity generated from those
| sources and discourage their use. Use the tax money to fund green
| energy research, green energy production, carbon capture, etc.
|
| Don't fight the market, act on the source and the market will
| adjust.
| rizoma_dev wrote:
| At some point knowingly engaging in this type of behavior should
| be considered a crime against humanity
| not2b wrote:
| John Oliver did a great piece on this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0
| sschueller wrote:
| It's like the WSJ watches Oliver then spends a week or two to
| write an article on the exact same issue. From what I recall
| this is the second time now.
| layman51 wrote:
| This reminds me that I had seen some other article about how
| sometimes, projects to plant a bunch of new trees are not
| successful because of maintenance or upkeep costs that may not
| have been thought out.
| david422 wrote:
| I installed solar panels on my roof and one of things you can do
| is then sell your home carbon credit on the market to some buyer.
|
| Which basically means that while you are still offsetting carbon
| by generating solar on your roof - since you've sold your share -
| that morally you are still responsible for your carbon footprint.
|
| I opted not to sell mine. It wasn't worth a ton of money and part
| of the reason I got solar anyways is to reduce the carbon
| footprint. It also seemed crazy to me that this was even an
| option that existed.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Overall, I struggle to see how this is a bad thing. Take the
| example at the start of the article:
|
| 1. Two decades ago, the UN set up a program for selling voluntary
| carbon credits under the assumption that renewables would not be
| price-competitive for a very long time, if ever, and would
| therefore need a subsidy.
|
| 2. Companies started buying those credits, even though they
| didn't have to, just to look good to consumers. As a result, the
| subsidy didn't cost taxpayers a dime.
|
| 3. Renewable technology developed faster than expected (in part
| due to the subsidy). Now renewables are competitive with fossil
| fuels and projects would be built even if companies didn't buy
| the credits.
|
| People should be absolutely thrilled by this outcome.
| yccs27 wrote:
| The program itself, with the intention and success of making
| renewables competitive, is absolutely a good thing.
|
| It's just not working quite as well as it could, because offset
| companies cheat. Carbon offsets now don't really help with the
| climate, and their price doesn't reflect the real cost of the
| emissions. And in the process, companies can present themselves
| as "carbon-neutral" when they really aren't, and thus can avoid
| consumer or even further regulatory actions.
| rglover wrote:
| > Now renewables are competitive with fossil fuels
|
| This isn't true. They might be competitive in a shallow sense
| (price per kWh) but in terms of benefit (specifically,
| reliability and output capacity), they're barely a sniff--hence
| the nightmare in Europe right now.
|
| That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions that
| need to be expended to _create_ those renewables (which are
| greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in its
| lifetime).
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > hence the nightmare in Europe right now.
|
| How would being more reliant on fossil fuels help them now?
| The problem is they are struggling to import enough. If they
| had more fossil fuel plants and less wind and solar they'd
| have to import even more fossil fuels.
|
| > That doesn't even factor in the fossil fuels and emissions
| that need to be expended to create those renewables (which
| are greater than the individual renewable will ever offset in
| its lifetime).
|
| False. There have been dozens of lifecycle analysis studies
| they find a more than 10x advantage of solar and wind over
| gas per kwh.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-
| cycle_greenhouse_gas_emis...
| rglover wrote:
| > How would being more reliant on fossil fuels help them
| now? The problem is they are struggling to import enough.
|
| Right. That problem exists because they drew back their own
| fossil fuel production to switch to renewables which are
| not providing the commensurate energy required, forcing
| them to go to outside providers.
|
| > False. There have been dozens of lifecycle analysis
| studies they find a more than 10x advantage of solar and
| wind over gas per kwh.
|
| Now do the factories to produce the components in the
| renewables, the trucks to ship the components, the
| equipment to install the components, the trucks to get the
| workers to maintain the components, etc. Batteries? You
| need massive trucks that can only run on diesel to mine the
| metals necessary to make them work.
|
| You're releasing insane amounts of emissions and wasting
| tons of energy just to say you're not on paper. It's
| absolute lunacy.
| Mavvie wrote:
| From their wikipedia link:
|
| > The goal of such assessments is to cover the full life
| of the source, from material and fuel mining through
| construction to operation and waste management.
|
| So the studies should already be including everything you
| mentioned.
| rglover wrote:
| That still doesn't account for the scale of deployment
| necessary to make up for the missing power requirements
| (the entire point I'm making) which, if I had to guess,
| would make this "10x" number irrelevant, if not
| laughable.
|
| For example, a quick check [1]:
|
| > Peak power production for the coal power plant was in
| July 2020 (719GWh) which was also the month for the
| lowest output for wind (34.6GWh). In July, the wind
| turbines produced just 4.8% of the power produced by the
| coal power plant while operating at only 9.4% of rated
| capacity. In the month of July, it would require at least
| 3,764 similar sized wind turbines to replace the
| electricity generated by the coal power plant which was
| operating at just 47% of rated capacity.
|
| [1] https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/08/19/c
| lash_of...
|
| I don't doubt that studies dealing in hypotheticals show
| that it's possible, but the reality doesn't match up.
| Solar is in the same boat.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| > Right. That problem exists because they drew back their
| own fossil fuel production to switch to renewables which
| are not providing the commensurate energy required,
| forcing them to go to outside providers.
|
| The North Sea was by far their biggest field for oil and
| gas and it is in sharp decline despite continued
| exploration. Even Norway is still exploring. The other
| big producer was the Netherlands, they closed their gas
| field because of earthquakes.
|
| > Now do the factories to produce the components in the
| renewables, the trucks to ship the components, the
| equipment to install the components, the trucks to get
| the workers to maintain the components, etc. Batteries?
| You need massive trucks that can only run on diesel to
| mine the metals necessary to make them work.
|
| As I said, dozens of life cycle analysis studies take all
| of this into account and come to the conclusion of a more
| than 10x advantage.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| But isn't making renewable energy more profitable still a good
| thing?
|
| It still incentivises building wind farms quicker, and the more
| wind farms we have the less dependent we are on gas.
| asiachick wrote:
| Of course!
|
| There are toxic emissions laws that "prevent" companies from
| polluting too much. Or rather they limit the amount each company
| can emit. To get around that limit they just subcontracted to
| tons of smaller companies, each one gets it's quota of emissions.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| This is exactly what happens when everything is turned into
| money. More so when the fiat money can be borrowed from the
| future, you are essentially kicking the can down the road.
|
| What next? Carbon emission futures? A thriving market where the
| futures are traded? All the while the emissions continue abated
| and even increase.
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| Carbon emission futures can be traded in many developed markets
| nowadays...
| lelandfe wrote:
| https://www.theice.com/market-data/indices/commodity-indices...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emissions_Tradi...
|
| :D
| ant6n wrote:
| But can I buy these as an etf (or etn or whatever)
| Tyndale wrote:
| clairity wrote:
| carbon (i.e., CO2) isn't the problem anyway, so let them waste
| their money on virtue signaling. _pollution_ is the problem. let
| 's focus on coal plants first, where getting rid of the top 100
| polluters would already palpably improve air (and water) quality
| that would in turn measurably reduce death and disease.
| loeg wrote:
| Carbon is definitely _a_ problem.
| black_13 wrote:
| kisamoto wrote:
| If you're a small business struggling to understand carbon
| offsets and removal I'll be happy to help.
|
| I run https://carbonremoved.com/ for individuals and we're
| beginning to work with businesses too.
|
| Email me at "ewan@" the domain above if you'd like to take real
| action towards net zero.
| hedora wrote:
| Are there any carbon offset programs that actually do reduce
| atmospheric carbon?
|
| Is there some sort of reputable certification board in this
| space?
|
| John Oliver had a great piece looking at the industry (linked
| elsewhere here already), but didn't provide much actionable
| advice. (Other than to never give The Nature Conservancy any
| money under any circumstances.)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/InZpI
| outside1234 wrote:
| We have to stop considering these offsets as having any virtue.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| > Transactions like this undercut the basic concept behind carbon
| offsets--that they should fund green projects that wouldn't be
| possible without the additional cash they bring.
|
| Is this really the basic concept? I thought it was meant to
| deliver carbon cutting at the cheapest cost. Redesigning a Delta
| airlines jet to be electric or make the engine more fuel
| efficient is $$$$. Now, there is a village in India that uses a
| coal power plant. It's cheaper for Delta to build a solar power
| plant in India, shutdown the coal plant, and claim all the carbon
| output they've reduced in India then to try and build a new
| airplane.
|
| Capital is therefore efficiently allocated to whatever carbon
| cutting project is the cheapest, therefore maximizing carbon
| reduction per dollar spent.
| opportune wrote:
| Since delta is paying to convert a coal plant to a solar plant,
| carbon offsets create perverse incentives like allowing you to
| "sell" or hold hostage something you were going to do anyway,
| keep inefficient things around so you can sell offsets lager,
| or start off doing something inefficient or bad so someone can
| pay you to stop.
|
| For example, as a fisherman it might be cheaper for me to buy
| some old, shitty, super-polluting boats, run them around for a
| bit generating huge amounts of emissions, and then go shopping
| for offsets. With the offsets I buy nicer boats that don't
| pollute as much. But without the offsets I might have either
| not been fishing at all or gone straight for the nicer boats.
|
| Basically, carbon offsets in theory allocate carbon savings
| where they are most effective financially, but in practice
| create structural inefficiencies (incentivized to start
| polluting to fix it). Also, they are prone to double counting.
| If I open a wind farm partially funded by carbon offsets, if I
| claim that the farm is removing as much CO2 as it actually
| saves, I'm double counting along with whoever paid for the
| offsets to be "carbon neutral" when there is indeed still a net
| amount of carbon being put in the atmosphere
| beambot wrote:
| You need to maintain a separate set of accounting books
| alongside all assets to track net carbon offsets. E.g., in
| your boat example: The negative carbon offset balance needs
| to get attached to the boat, so that subsequent owners cannot
| claim the same benefit. Then there should be a threshold date
| at which assets get their offset balance zeroed.
| opportune wrote:
| That sounds good but it probably wouldn't work in the
| developing and undeveloped world. Also, it doesn't stop the
| problem of new things being made because they have a floor
| price set by carbon offsets. A new polluting asset becomes
| more valuable when it has a fixed rebate for
| decommissioning it. You can scrap my old shitty polluting
| boat but I can probably just buy a new shitty polluting
| boat
| njarboe wrote:
| Let's just have a CO2 tax already. Revenues given back to
| the people directly split evenly per person.
| ajross wrote:
| > perverse incentives like allowing you to "sell" or hold
| hostage something you were going to do anyway
|
| This is true, but it's a weird way to frame it. Yes,
| absolutely: carbon-sensitive regulation changes the market
| pricing such that less polluting activities and means of
| production are "worth more". So if you have some, you win. If
| you were planning on having some in the future ("were going
| to do anyway"), you likewise get a windfall.
|
| And thats... good? It's not perfect. But it produces the
| result we want.
|
| IMHO the much bigger problem with offset regulation is that
| it's likely to be nearly impossible to actually measure[1]
| and we'll be dealing with cheating and fraud for decades. But
| the incentives seem fine to me.
|
| [1] Vs. a carbon tax which is pure simplicity: $xxx per ton
| of carbon (for extra credit: a floating price based on a
| dynamic bid-based sequestration market) pulled out of
| nonrenewable sources, paid by the extractor at the time of
| initial sale, and let the market sort out how to allocate the
| overhead.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| Who gets to decide what the carbon footprint of every
| activity is? How is the surveillance of every activity
| performed? What is the performance metric to evaluate the
| success or failure of the system?
| ajross wrote:
| The third question has an obvious answer, so I'm not sure
| I get your point. The first two are just saying
| "regulation is hard", and I agree. But it's possible
| nonetheless, just like every other regulated industry.
|
| Recognize that all your questions could have been asked
| about, say, sulphate emission regulation in the 1970's.
| (Or CFC's in the 90's). And that worked out OK.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Like the Great Hanoi Rat Massacre. [1] You get what you pay
| for!
|
| 1: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hanoi-rat-
| massacre-190...
| andai wrote:
| Other examples include India had a bounty for snakes, so
| people started snake farms.
|
| My favorite one though is about the British paying China
| for dinosaur fossils, but they paid per _fragment_ , so
| (naturally!) entire fossils were smashed into many small
| pieces.
| gumby wrote:
| > For example, as a fisherman it might be cheaper for me to
| buy some old, shitty, super-polluting boats,
|
| At the level of an individual, yes.* However consider a fleet
| of cargo ships. They last, and depreciate, over about 20
| years. Even if the owner buys newer, cleaner ones, they
| aren't throwing away the old ones, and the one bought today
| will stay in service until around 2042. It's not unreasonable
| to offset this ancient cap ex, especially if governments
| _also_ ramp up regulation so the economics for the oldest
| /worst of continued use vs scrapping make them uneconomic.
|
| In a utopian sense this is clearly worse than just replacing
| all the polluting equipment, but in the real world a "big
| bang" solution can't work, not the least because there isn't
| enough shipbuilding capacity to replace the entire fleet
| overnight.
|
| The ethics of offset vs removal credits, and the whole offset
| credit market is a complex and sorry situation and this
| article just scratches the surface. OTOH one reason it's so
| marginal, despite the efforts of some people (including Verra
| and Gold Standard) to make it better, are largely because
| credits of any non-mandatory size are barely used (about $1B
| traded last year) so there's little incentive to clean it up.
| Hopefully that is in the process of changing; the market is
| growing and prices are rising faster than the market is
| growing indicating that demand is increasing.
|
| * At the consumer level this is all awful. Remember when
| Obama did "Cash for clunkers" to get polluting cars off the
| road? You couldn't get the credit unless you bored a hole in
| the block and injected some epoxy. In Germany they had a
| similar program, but just took the old cars and shipped them
| to LDCs in Africa where they could continue to pollute, just
| someplace else. Or for aging luxury cars, some nefarious
| companies would send them across the border into Poland and
| then smuggle them back in and get the credit another time.
| padjo wrote:
| Funny, I thought the basic concept was that they allow
| westerners to tick a box and mitigate the guilt they feel from
| living ludicrously unsustainable lifestyles.
| russdill wrote:
| In theory, it's great. In practice perverse incentives and
| little to no regulation make it worthless. A John Oliver
| explainer:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p8zAbFKpW0
| hinkley wrote:
| The spoof offsets he sells at the end of that segment have
| already sold out:
|
| https://www.oliversoffsets.org/
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| Side tangent. John Oliver is amazing at using comedy to
| basically blow the whistle on a lot of shitty things
| happening in this country.. from the way truckers are treated
| and basically exploited, to drinking water crises, and
| everything in between. Jon Stewart did a lot of this too, and
| was great. I heard once people who get news from shows like
| the Daily show, Late shows or John Oliver type shows actually
| are more 'informed' about current events than those who watch
| Fox, MSNBC, CNN, or even just local nightly news on NBC or
| CBS.
| uoaei wrote:
| That's true, and popularizing knowledge is important.
|
| What's also true is you get only a specific worldview and
| consequent narrative from these kinds of shows. They have
| convergent ideologies and parrot a single, totalizing, pro-
| capital, -moderation, -individualist method for solving the
| problems stated as such. It's great if you've drunk the
| Kool-aid but it does paper over a lot of prescient issues
| (climate change, culture war, etc.) on the assumption that
| they will be solved by emphasizing politicking and de-
| emphasizing economicking.
| hinkley wrote:
| When the Catholic Church did this in the Middle Ages, they were
| called 'indulgences' and they ended up being a license to sin,
| which it turns out is a very bad idea.
| kyleblarson wrote:
| File this one under "completely unsurprising".
| liamconnell wrote:
| I go back and forth on the push for carbon neutrality for large
| companies (as opposed to some form of carbon tax). I'll give a
| few examples that I've seen first-hand in my work as a
| consultant.
|
| 1. A large state-owned African agricultural company is using
| satellite and soil-sample data to measure the carbon
| sequestration potential of agricultural land if certain farming
| techniques are used (no-till, etc). They use satellite and soil-
| sample data feeding into a biological model implemented in
| fortran (from some academic paper that may or may not be
| replicated) for the estimation. The plan is to go to farmers and
| ask them to switch the technique. The company would sell carbon
| credits, give the participating farmers a cut and keep the rest.
| This has great potential! but the large-scale implementation is
| very difficult manage. The company would at least need to
| randomly check in on participating farmers. It should also take
| soil samples over time to make sure the technique is working.
| Carbon credit sellers should be auditable, but the government
| relations and size of the company might make that difficult to do
| rigorously.
|
| 2. An analytics tool hopes to help large companies identify the
| parts of their supply chain that can reduce the overall carbon
| emissions of a product with the lowest price increase to the end-
| consumer. Think about BMW sourcing steel from China for example.
| If this helps companies actively manage their supply chain in
| order to lower emissions, then suppliers will adopt to low-carbon
| techniques over time. The problem is that it requires suppliers
| to disclose their emissions accurately. Many supply chains in
| carbon-intensive industries are global and fragmented. If a bad-
| actor supplier on the other side of the world lied and got
| caught, they could just change their name and carry on.
|
| 3. Global supply chains also present issues with carbon taxes at
| the drilling/mining site. You can't force foreign countries to
| tax this (and if you did they would be incentivized to cheat),
| and you can't force foreign companies to accurately disclose
| energy use. A domestic energy tax would make local manufacturing
| uncompetitive, which is something most countries are not willing
| to sacrifice.
|
| The debate between carbon neutrality vs carbon/extraction taxes
| is the choice between inventing an entire new bureaucracy of
| enforcement (carbon audits, carbon disclosure, etc) or the
| impossible task of rallying and enforcing global action (every
| country imposes the same tax, no exceptions). As an engineer, I
| understand the seeming beauty and efficiency of the second
| option, but I think the first is ultimately going to be our best
| bet.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| > A domestic energy tax would make local manufacturing
| uncompetitive
|
| That's what tariffs are for? Products from countries that don't
| tax carbon could just get a carbon tariff added on import.
| liamconnell wrote:
| Great point. This would be great for a net importer country
| like the US. Germany (net exporter) wants their goods
| competitive abroad.
|
| On the other hand, if the US and other high-consumption
| countries collaborated on this it would probably be
| effective.
|
| Like I said, I go back and forth on it. Or better put, I
| think both approaches are valid albeit with big
| implementation challenges.
| yorwba wrote:
| > This would be great for a net importer country like the
| US. Germany (net exporter) wants their goods competitive
| abroad.
|
| Ironically, Germany has a fuel tax https://www.gesetze-im-
| internet.de/energiestg/__2.html that is 4 times as high as
| that of California https://www.foxla.com/news/californias-
| gas-tax-goes-up-july-... , which apparently has the highest
| fuel tax in the US.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Destroys the countries export potential to countries that
| don't have a carbon tax or are willing to import from
| countries that don't.
| Tarsul wrote:
| we should be real here: The idea of carbon credits/certificats is
| better than doing nothing as generelly these steps should help
| (better to put money where it could be worthwhile than where we
| know it ain't). Where it doesn't help, we have journalists and
| other organisations that show this (like in this example), so
| that the bad apples can be separated from the good apples. What
| really counts is the following: Having the right aim, listening
| to concerns and changing course where necessary. What doesn't
| help is unnecessary cynism (and drive-by posting). And of course
| we can gain the most if our politicians are using adequate
| incentives.
|
| As for the certificates from Gold standard: They also have
| recycling projects, reforestation (yeah, i know that the
| discussion about this is ongoing as well!) and some programs
| where poor people are helped with appliances that are less
| environmentally damaging. Everyone can invest in whatever project
| one wants. We can argue about which of these programs help the
| most (especially since we don't really differentiate between
| carbon reduction, carbon sinks and carbon capture), BUT what
| counts is that we, as people of this planet, are trying and
| improving.
| pas wrote:
| > what counts
|
| both counts. intent and efficiency (results).
|
| the big problem is that there is no agency that would fine/sue
| the shit out of these scams.
| rmolin88 wrote:
| John Oliver recently did an episode on this:
|
| https://youtu.be/6p8zAbFKpW0
| tech_tuna wrote:
| Carbon offsets are like recycling plastic. The better alternative
| to recycling plastic is not producing and buying stuff made out
| of plastic in the first place.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| I'm selling carbon credits too, by the way. If you want to be
| absolved of your sins of pollution, just send me money and I'll
| email you an official Cyberdog Planetary Salvation Certification.
| It's very easy. I'll use all funds to plant trees or whatever,
| minus obligatory administration fees (don't worry about it). Just
| ping me with however many credits you need and I'll send you my
| CashApp tag or Dogecoin wallet address.
| UmbertoNoEco wrote:
| loeg wrote:
| > I'll use all funds to plant trees or whatever,
|
| It's even dumber than that. You just have to promise _not to
| chop down_ some existing trees that you would chop down in the
| absence of payments. Nevermind if you really would chop them
| down or not. Or if you 've already sold the same promise on the
| same grove of trees to another buyer.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Can you throw in a Lordship of an EU country or name a star
| after me?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Funnily enough, someone did more or less what you did a few
| years back (but as actual fraud).
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/renewable-fuels-f...
|
| A guy was literally making up RINs (renewable identification
| numbers) in a spreadsheet and selling them to companies as
| renewable energy credits. The only reason he got caught is
| because he was buying a bunch of sports cars and leaving them
| parked all over his neighborhood, leading his neighbors to
| assume he was a drug dealer.
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