[HN Gopher] Europe makes shipping vessels pay for carbon emissions
___________________________________________________________________
Europe makes shipping vessels pay for carbon emissions
Author : isthispermanent
Score : 111 points
Date : 2022-12-02 16:52 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.maxinomics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.maxinomics.com)
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| Maybe relate to a news article from Reuters instead of an
| obviously biased blog?
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/eu-strikes-deal-make-sh...
| themitigating wrote:
| How is it biased?
| isthispermanent wrote:
| It's linked in the post and the author makes the point at the
| end that it's too early to determine how this action should be
| judged...
|
| _" In a decade Europe is either going to look like a genius on
| how to get tough things done or it's going to be an economic
| madhouse, falling behind other parts of the world."_
| cube2222 wrote:
| As a European, I'm so happy about this.
|
| A system where emitters can ignore the actual cost of their
| externalities and push them down onto society at large to handle
| (through taxes) is broken.
|
| This should also result in more funding around anything green
| tech related, when you actually have to pay the full price of the
| currently-used alternatives.
|
| Ideally, there'd be a market with buyers (capturers) and sellers
| (emitters) (with a negative price, so cash flows from seller to
| buyer, obviously) for carbon emissions where the price depends on
| the actual underlying cost of capture, but that will hopefully
| come in the future, when carbon capture is commercially viable.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| There's no alternative to diesel for shipping vessels at the
| moment so the only thing this does is increasing prices for EU
| consumers and businesses.
|
| It's like what triggered the Yellow Vests protests in France: a
| tax on diesel when people have no alternative. It seems that
| nothing was learnt from that.
|
| A constructive approach would be to invest in developing
| alternatives then you can tax away to hasten change.
|
| Article says that Europe will look either like a genius or a
| madhouse depending how this goes... well, track record isn't
| too good.
| it_citizen wrote:
| I agree. Europe is kicking ass on the climate change front
| lately. They are definitely not doing enough but when I compare
| their actions to the actions other super powers, I can
| appreciate their efforts.
|
| Really excited to see how the CBAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wi
| ki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mecha...) will pan out.
| gibolt wrote:
| Carbon capture is so costly and energy intensive, that this
| likely won't come close to covering the cost. It is absolutely
| a step in the right direction, but carbon capture is unlikely
| to end up commercially viable.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Not sure why you got downvoted.
|
| Not emitting carbon is always going to be more effective than
| emitting then capturing carbon.
|
| But most of green tech is a load of green washing
| (https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE warning long video).
|
| By most I mean non-nuclear, non hydro-electric.
|
| Fact is that battery tech isn't up to task of high capacity
| highly reusable energy storage.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's harder to police not emitting carbon, after all right
| now I'm not emitting five billion tons a second of carbon.
|
| I also _lack_ the ability to emit that much, but that 's
| not a major issue. In general it's hard to pay for someone
| NOT doing something without it being scammed.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Then tax every m3 emitted.
|
| Sure it will be passed to consumer but there aren't any
| good alternatives tbh.
|
| Or just don't do anything and pray you aren't destroyed
| by climate change.
| svorakang wrote:
| There are definitely examples of where CCS is commercially
| viable [1], but implementation is lagging, and the technology
| is very unlikely to scale to capture the amounts that we are
| releasing. It would generally make better sense to keep the C
| in the geosphere than to first pump it up, burn and capture
| it again.
|
| [1] https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/531680
| [deleted]
| bboygravity wrote:
| It's also insanely dangerous if it goes wrong.
| _Microft wrote:
| Are you thinking of any particular technology? Synthetic
| fuels don't seem to be more dangerous than fossil fuels for
| example.
| legitster wrote:
| > A system where emitters can ignore the actual cost of their
| externalities and push them down onto society at large to
| handle (through taxes) is broken.
|
| I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. This announcement is
| for shipping companies to currently be rolled into the current
| Cap and Trade policy framework.
| isthispermanent wrote:
| >> _Ideally, there 'd be a market with buyers (capturers) and
| sellers (emitters) (with a negative price, so cash flows from
| seller to buyer, obviously) for carbon emissions where the
| price depends on the actual underlying cost of capture, but
| that will hopefully come in the future, when carbon capture is
| commercially viable_
|
| These carbon permits (also called EUAs) are tradeable as
| futures and are highly liquid on the ICE exchange. There are
| even a bunch of ETFs, KRBN being the biggest and highest
| volume.
| spookie wrote:
| I wonder what else could be done to lessen the consumption of
| products made possible by continuous violation of human rights.
|
| The cheap leather industry comes to mind.
| xil3 wrote:
| Right, and who do you think will pay for this new tax? It's
| definitely not the importers and exporters - it's the end
| customers, because everything will go up in price. They're not
| going to absorb those fees.
|
| The only ones making money here is the EU governments imposing
| this.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Yes, the customers pay the tax, but the exporters and
| importers have to factor in the decreased demand (or margin)
| as the price has increased. And how they invest in the
| future.
|
| And it goes to upstream businesses, if exporter Y has a lower
| tax basis, then they will pay rates approaching current
| exporter X.
| doikor wrote:
| The price going up for such forms of shipping is the point.
|
| So if a competitor figures out how to do the shipping cheaper
| due to it outputting less co2 (like trains running on
| electricity or just less polluting ships) those should over
| time win on the marketplace and shift the shipping industry
| to less pollution options.
|
| edit: And the government can redistribute the carbon taxes to
| the part of the population this will hit the hardest easily
| by lowering VAT, income taxes at the lower end of progression
| or just direct subsidies.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| > edit: And the government can redistribute the carbon
| taxes to the part of the population this will hit the
| hardest easily by lowering VAT, income taxes at the lower
| end of progression or just direct subsidies.
|
| In reality governments will create laws which will
| distribute those money to friendly companies. You can
| forget right now that it will go back to poor people.
| axus wrote:
| Wouldn't the importer/exporter with less emissions have a
| competitive advantage? I think it's understood that citizens
| are paying a new tax to incentivize emission reduction by the
| companies.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Carbon tax supporters often advocates to redistribute the tax
| revenues equally to all citizen. That's how Canada does it.
|
| It still penalizes polluters and raise the prices of the
| products emitting the most CO2 but it is a blank or positive
| operation for 80% of the population (and negative for the
| ~20% richest that are the polluting the most).
|
| Look up carbon fee with dividends for more details.
| oliwary wrote:
| Well, alternatively, everyone else in the world is paying for
| me to have cheap imported goods, especially the people I
| poorer countries who will suffer the worst from climate
| change. It seems fairer that I should bear the cost.
| comte7092 wrote:
| This line is brought out in every tax discussion.
|
| Fundamentally, mainstream economics does not agree with your
| point of view. The bedrock of modern economic theory is clear
| on this: all prices are set by supply and demand.
|
| Consumers pay the full tax burden _only_ in the instance
| wherein demand is perfectly inelastic. Realistically, the
| more suppliers try to raise prices, the more consumers will
| shift to substitutes or demand less.
|
| Ergo these taxes tend to fall on both consumers and
| suppliers, with the balance depending on the type of good and
| the market surrounding it.
| charles_f wrote:
| 1. It's pretty much a closed system. "EU governments", as
| much as "governments" is villainized, remain just an entity
| in the loop. That money is not going straight in the pocket
| of politicians. It's going in the budget. More revenue on
| this front means less to pull from somewhere else. Brocken as
| the electoral system is, all politicians still have a very
| big incentive if they want to keep their jobs to keep
| taxation low as they can. If anything by redistributing that
| money to people the most impacted, or by using it to sponsor
| incentive programs to reduce local carbon footprint.
|
| 2. Yep, prices for transported goods will surge, which is the
| intended consequence. If the general price of imported goods
| raises, then locally manufactured goods become more
| competitive. This gives an incentive for customers to select
| products built more closely to their place. It also gives a
| financial incentive for shipping companies to invest in
| cleaner transportation if they want to keep business.
|
| 3. Overall, yes this is scary, but think about it at a
| systemic level. This creates opportunities for local
| businesses and employers to sell more. This lowers the
| incentive to keep exploiting low-paid populations across the
| globe, potentially shifting the balance on their side to make
| social progress. And this reduces the carbon footprint, which
| we freaking desperately need.
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| > Overall, yes this is scary, but think about it at a
| systemic level.
|
| On systemic level this and similar policies are only
| creating simple onboarding ramp for right wing governments.
| Look at those stupid liberals how they are making
| everything more expensive for you! We will cancel it! Vote
| for us!
|
| Absurdly short sighted.
| charles_f wrote:
| > We will cancel it! Vote for us!
|
| Left wing can redistribute, which is quite a left wing
| thing to do. In practice this does not happen. I remember
| the outcries when VAT was increased in France in 2014. 3
| years later, no-one seriously contending for the
| elections had a program to roll this back, left or right.
|
| Oh and, by the way: the initial plan was made by a
| *right-wing president*, to raise it by 1.6%, AND THEN
| carried on by a leftist but only by .4%.
|
| So, I have at least one example for the exact opposite to
| what you are saying. I don't buy in your argument
|
| > Absurdly short sighted.
|
| I love how status quo and let's burn the planet is not
| short-sighted in your world view. That's probably the
| first somewhat courageous and potentially impactful
| measure I see on the topic, the systemic view says it may
| work, why not trying it?
| TheLoafOfBread wrote:
| > I love how status quo and let's burn the planet is not
| short-sighted in your world view.
|
| Because when things starts to be cancelled do you think
| that we right wing governments will stop at one law?
| Decades of green policies will go down the toilet. So
| yeah slowly turning status quo is better than having a
| massive rebound.
| burnished wrote:
| That's the point - they have to pay the costs themselves, so
| if it turns out something isn't important enough to be
| shipped at the 'real price' (including these externalities)
| then customers won't pay for it. Instead of now, where
| everyone pays for it, and the real price is obfuscated.
| otikik wrote:
| We are already paying for it through bad air quality and
| climate change. It's good that they feel that pain as well.
| cube2222 wrote:
| > Right, and who do you think will pay for this new tax?
|
| Consumers, of course, but not indirectly, with such a diluted
| notion of responsibility as it is now (by paying for
| externalities through general taxes). It will be priced into
| the products, as it should be.
|
| This way products that are "greener" will be cheaper and
| people will have an incentive to buy them.
|
| I have no problem with companies profiting off of the
| products they sell, or end customers paying for the actual
| cost of the product. It's just that a market without
| externalities having a price tag isn't a well-designed "free
| market".
| briandear wrote:
| Could anyone have a claim that reducing carbon is a negative
| externality for them? For example, warmer temps could benefit
| farmers in certain regions. Are they compensated by this
| scheme? Are we assuming that alleged warmer temperatures are
| bad for everyone? How is that decided?
| hgsgm wrote:
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| Climate of mass destruction.
| legitster wrote:
| Cap and trade is an underrated climate policy.
|
| It's clearly not as good as a true carbon tax, but it is much
| more politically palatable (it's _ostensibly_ leveraged on
| companies, not consumers).
|
| Rolling more industries into the cap and trade markets will only
| make the markets more robust.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Government creating thinly traded markets that gatekeep
| essential services is always a bad idea. It funnels huge fees
| to wall street and creates opportunities for financial
| manipulation. It is Clinton-era neoliberal grift. I thought the
| fiasco of energy de-regulation made people a bit more realistic
| about inserting Wall Street into the middle of everything, but
| apparently there are still true believers in market solutions
| to what are major energy infrastructure issues, not consumer
| choice issues, or how-do-I-run-a-business-efficiently issues.
|
| As always, demand-side engineering to incentivize hard supply
| side problems only serves to make things more expensive and
| enrich bad actors. If you don't believe that, then understand
| that many industries battle with high energy prices and are
| already doing their best to be more efficient. Your carbon tax
| is not going to be the difference maker. If you want to shift
| to a different form of energy, then build a power plant which
| provides the energy you want and take a power plant that you
| don't like offline. Do this one plant at a time until all have
| been changed. Same for shipping -- you don't like existing
| shipping tech, then create a replacement. Oh, that's too hard?
| Then why do you think the free market will solve a hard problem
| you can't? Don't go this roundabout way where you think you are
| incentivizing end users to pool their money together and build
| their own privately funded energy breakthrough.
|
| By refusing to directly provision the replacement, what the
| government is doing is washing its hands and shifting the
| burden of hard R&D onto the private sector, which cannot bear
| this burden very well. So all it does is make stuff more
| expensive at a time when we are fighting inflation globally,
| and Europe is rapidly de-industrializing because of high fossil
| fuel prices.
| legitster wrote:
| That's the thing. We don't _need_ R &D breakthroughs. We
| _have_ infrastructure solutions today - they are just not
| cost effective for the suppliers because the free-market cost
| of carbon is $0.
|
| Of course a carbon tax won't invent fusion - but I think it
| would be madness to make the case that people or industries
| don't adjust their consumption to adapt to taxes.
|
| Keep in mind we have 30 years of data that shows cap and
| trade programs achieve their objectives and are pretty
| stinking cost effective.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > We have infrastructure solutions today
|
| Prove it. If you say it's a solved problem, then go ahead
| and deploy the replacement. What should power ships if not
| fossil fuels? Sail? Batteries? Hydrogen? Go ahead and tell
| me the replacement and then deploy it at scale. If it needs
| some money to be cost effective, then subsidize it so that
| it's cost effective and deploy the replacement. No wall
| street needed. No trading needed. Just deploy the
| replacement and subsidize it as needed.
|
| > Of course a carbon tax won't invent fusion - but I think
| it would be madness to make the case that people or
| industries don't adjust their consumption to adapt to
| taxes.
|
| Yes, but we do not want industries to use less energy,
| which is all that cap and trade will accomplish. What we
| need is replacement energy.
|
| >Keep in mind we have 30 years of data that shows cap and
| trade programs achieve their objectives and are pretty
| stinking cost effective.
|
| No we don't. You are conflating the reduction of energy
| usage (which creates global famine and de-
| industrialization) with the _deployment of a replacement_.
| We do not have 30 years of data that cap and trade is
| effective at solving the problem of transforming our energy
| infrastructure, cap and trade is only effective at
| _reducing usage_. And it does not follow that reducing
| usage of fossil fuels will, by a type of inevitability,
| cause replacements to appear that are powered by market
| magic. It will just mean _less shipping_ , which again
| means famine and de-industrialization.
| legitster wrote:
| If you build more nuclear or renewable, that takes
| pressure off of the oil and gas markets. With cheaper oil
| and gas, it would start making sense to switch shipping
| from bunker fuel (literally the dregs of the fuel
| process) to a fuel source that is a little less
| polluting.
|
| Coal is dying in the US - not because of government R&D
| or political efforts (perhaps in spite of them) - but
| because of the prevalence of cheap natural gas and
| industry's ability to adapt when presented with a price
| incentive.
|
| The whole point of cap and trade is that it's easier for
| some sectors to adapt than others, and it's easier to
| just have them sort it out amongst themselves.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| "If you build more nuclear" can be done without cap and
| trade, and thus the positive spillovers also happen
| without cap and trade.
|
| But what doesn't happen, is that cap and trade doesn't
| result in building more nuclear.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > It funnels huge fees to wall street and creates
| opportunities for financial manipulation. It is Clinton-era
| neoliberal grift. I thought the fiasco of energy de-
| regulation made people a bit more realistic about inserting
| Wall Street into the middle of everything[...]
|
| Not saying you're wrong, but how does Wall Street capitalize
| from this? It looks more like a government money grab to me
| (if you want the cynical take), since the implementation is
| quite literally a tax.
|
| That said, totally agree it's also an energy infrastructure
| problem - that governments have been incredibly stupid and
| naive with the last couple of decades.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Wall street can make money by charging financial service
| fees for:
|
| - market making
|
| - organizing sales of credits
|
| - organizing purchase of credits
|
| - selling hedging and insurance products so firms have some
| guarantees to support long term planning
|
| That's in the "honest grift" category, then all sorts of
| nonsense can happen under the category of market
| manipulation, such as Enron style buying up credits to
| cause a price spike, or denying credits to competitors,
| etc.
|
| > That said, totally agree it's also an energy
| infrastructure problem - that governments have been
| incredibly stupid and naive with the last couple of
| decades.
|
| Exactly. Build more power plants, connect them to the grid,
| take older plants offline. No need to yell at people or tax
| basic human needs like transportation or electrical usage.
| For ships, the government can fund research on alternate
| fuels for ships, and the private sector can be brought in
| with research prizes and grants, etc. But the idea that a
| shipper -- _which doesn 't even build any ships_ -- is
| going to somehow innovate to create new shipbuilding
| designs and get into the business of building non-fossil
| fuel consuming ships -- doesn't make a lot of sense. All
| that will happen is that shipping becomes more expensive,
| which has terrible negative externalities. Only the
| strongest market fundamentalists want to leave basic R&D
| and long term investment to the magic of the free market.
| MBCook wrote:
| Good. We should do the same.
| o_1 wrote:
| Good, yes tax things we need more? Where is this money going?
| Are we funding research for hydrogen powered freight? 1st world
| taxation almost always affects the bottom rung of the planet
| while building endless coffers of money for the wealthy.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| "starting in 2024 all shipping vessels going in and out of
| Europe will need to buy enough permits to cover 40% of their
| emissions, by 2026 it'll be 100%."
|
| If we (the US) do the same, presumably we'd need a scheme to
| split the obligations from the permits, otherwise shipping
| companies will be subject to double (or more) taxation.
|
| Of course any system like this will be gamed - maybe the long-
| haul cargo ships from China will unload outside of the EU, but
| close to Europe (Turkey? UK?), re-load the cargo on another
| ship and pay for the much smaller amount of emissions on that
| final journey.
| bombcar wrote:
| It'll be interesting to see how it's gamed, but that doesn't
| mean we shouldn't try - you will get things like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc but they can be
| corrected for later.
|
| One solution would be to switch the tax to a tariff on goods
| that can be avoided if you prove reduced carbon travel. So if
| your goods are from China, you get the 100% whatever it is,
| but if you can show that they travelled from China on
| whatever is considered acceptable, it drops to 20% or 0% or
| similar.
| superchroma wrote:
| Good.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| What is the collected tax being used for?
|
| It's one thing if the selling of the credits will be used to
| subsidize clean energy or to reduce the burden of the good
| purchased by lowering taxes. However, if the money is going
| towards growing other social programs, it may just make life more
| expensive for the average European.
| Permit wrote:
| > or to reduce the burden of the good purchased by lowering
| taxes
|
| Why would you want this? You want prices on shipped goods that
| emit carbon to be high so the average European will be less
| likely to buy them and choose cheaper (greener) alternatives.
|
| The goal isn't "punish the company that emits" it's "punish the
| individual who chooses to create emissions through their
| purchases".
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| The goal is to punish companies that pollute not the people
| who consume the goods. In making polluting goods more
| expensive, you open up space for competition that uses fewer
| pollutants to offer similar goods at lower prices.
| Permit wrote:
| > In making polluting goods more expensive, you open up
| space for competition that uses fewer pollutants to offer
| similar goods at lower prices.
|
| I think we're in agreement. I'd just say that if you make a
| good more expensive but then immediately reimburse the
| consumer for that extra expense then you are not really
| making that good more expensive. A good system should make
| sure that a polluting good is expensive and that consumers
| feel that expense.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Expensive is relative. If there is an alternative good of
| cheaper price, then the original good is expensive.
|
| For instance, if a grocer charges $0.10 per plastic bag
| to the consumer, but $0 to the consumer for paper bags,
| the consumer is likely to consume the paper bag. That
| extra $0.10 can then be used to lower the cost of other
| things because the company's profits are slightly higher.
| The rebate to the consumer from those paying for plastic
| is negligible because it's not perceived to be in direct
| relation to the immediate purchase (the cheaper cost of
| the paper bag is, however).
|
| What does the consumer do with the extra money? They
| consume more of the cheaper product which is hopefully
| more environmentally sustainable.
| 988747 wrote:
| Europe seems to be hell-bent on committing suicide, economically.
| Brits can consider themselves lucky, to abandon this sinking ship
| just in time :)
| Animatronio wrote:
| Yup, the EU aims to become irrelevant economically, not only
| politically & militarily. Probably to be a smaller target?
| Proven wrote:
| arcticbull wrote:
| Luckily folks are starting to realize that's not the case. [1]
|
| > Centre for European Reform figures show that by the end of
| last year, the economy was 5% - or PS31 billion - smaller than
| it would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU. [2]
|
| [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/brits-are-starting-to-
| think-...
|
| [2] https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-
| billi...
| FpUser wrote:
| For whatever reasons including energy prices they're not doing
| particularly great either.
| owisd wrote:
| The UK replaced the EU-ETS with an identical scheme :
| https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participating-in-...
| isthispermanent wrote:
| California has one as well. It's not nearly as tight as
| Europe's but they want to get to that point in the next few
| years.
| spookie wrote:
| I wonder whose businesses aren't going to be up to snuff, and
| how much local economies are going to earn from this.
|
| Really makes one think if it is indeed suicide...
| youngtaff wrote:
| Saw an article the other day that stated roughly 40% of shipping
| is moving fossil fuels around the globe, so using less fossil
| fuels has a double bonus
| thatcherc wrote:
| That's a big takeaway I got from the book _Electrify_ by Saul
| Griffith (a really good read). The book only really looks at US
| carbon emissions, but a substantial chunk of emissions comes
| from refining and transporting petroleum projects -- these are
| emissions that occur just to _prepare_ gasoline to be burned!
| Switching to electric cars (or just fewer cars) has the same
| double bonus as you mentioned in that there 's less tailpipe
| emissions and less petro processing and transportation
| emissions as well.
| arcticbull wrote:
| For what it's worth, marine shipping is the single most fuel
| efficient way of moving anything anywhere. A large cargo ship can
| move a ton of cargo up to 1000 miles on a single gallon of fuel.
| [1]
|
| Second is freight trains, at about 500 miles per gallon per ton.
| [2]
|
| [edit] #3 is freight trucks at about 134 miles per gallon per ton
| [3] and pulling up the rear is air transport at at somewhere
| around 1/10th of trains.
|
| [1]
| https://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/EstimatesofTo...
|
| [2] https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-moving-miles-
| ahead-...
|
| [3] https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-
| advantage/fue...
| acdha wrote:
| My understanding is that shipping is fuel efficient but not
| emissions efficient because that hasn't been required by the
| flag countries popularly used to register vehicles so you're
| basically seeing things like a half century-old design from an
| emissions control perspective. Since that industry is so cost
| sensitive something like this makes sense for closing that
| loophole.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I agree, but it seems like they're charging them for carbon,
| not for other emissions? If you want to cut down on carbon,
| taxing air freight seems like the way to go.
|
| My concern is they're likely to redirect marine cargo to
| other modes which is going to be worse from a carbon
| intensity perspective.
| acdha wrote:
| Agreed, but I would think this should be a "do both"
| situation since that'd preserve the status quo keeping air
| cargo more expensive and tell everyone that they need to
| make capital investments or change how they work to be less
| carbon intensive.
| pipo234 wrote:
| Hopefully the tax will lead to different consumption
| patterns.
|
| Once you stop flying the single most impactful change is
| stop buying stuff. Never mind energy, food, local travels.
|
| For "stuff" the majority of emissions is in production
| (mining), but relentlessly moving matter across the world
| because fossil fuels are mostly untaxed is also a major
| factor
| charles_f wrote:
| Wrong, the most carbon efficient transport mode is not to ship
| at all. Taxing transport creates the opportunity for local
| manufacturing to become profitable
| Cerium wrote:
| Sounds like a great place to start since the cost will be very
| low per ton of cargo?
| pipo234 wrote:
| True. But at the same time, it should also be noted that the
| top 16 largest ships emit as much CO2 as all cars in the world.
|
| https://www.lngtransfer.com/news/the-16-biggest-ships-produc...
| [deleted]
| polski-g wrote:
| The article you linked does not support your claim.
| deepnotderp wrote:
| No.
|
| Ready your own link, the top 16 ships produce more
| _particulate emissions_ (sulfur and nitrogen oxides
| especially), because of low regulations and cost pressures
| driving the use of low quality fuels (bunker fuel).
| pipo234 wrote:
| I stand corrected.
|
| And agree that EU's regulation would also benefit from
| taking a more holistic view on pollution than my
| (erroneous) zealotting on CO2 alone.
| crote wrote:
| That's already the case, actually! A lot of the European
| waters have had quite strict limitations on the fuel's
| NOx and SOx contents for over 15 years already - and
| shipping was pretty much the last remaining industry
| allowed to use such high-pollutant fuel.
| bombcar wrote:
| European _waters_ - the ships burn the nasty shit in
| international waters and switch to clean fuel when
| approaching the countries. There needs to be some way to
| get them to burn the clean fuel _all the time_ - perhaps
| by climate concerned nations removing naval protection
| from boats that aren 't burning clean.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Global agreements have already been made to phase out the
| particulates globally and, before that in European areas:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_control_area
|
| > Emission control areas (ECAs), or sulfur emission
| control areas (SECAs), are sea areas in which stricter
| controls were established to minimize airborne emissions
| from ships as defined by Annex VI[1] of the 1997 MARPOL
| Protocol.
|
| > The emissions specifically include SOx, NOx, ODSs and
| VOCs[2] and the regulations came into effect in May
| 2005.[3][4] Annex VI contains provisions for two sets of
| emission and fuel quality requirements regarding SOx and
| PM, or NOx, a global requirement and more stringent
| controls in special emission control areas (ECA).[5] The
| regulations stems from concerns about "local and global
| air pollution and environmental problems" in regard to
| the shipping industry's contribution. In January 2020, a
| revised more stringent Annex VI was enforced in the
| emission control areas with significantly lowered
| emission limits.[2]
|
| The original factoid hit the headlines because all that
| work was done and so people had the data to do
| comparisions. It was slow but steady work to improve the
| environment and somehow it got turned into
| "environmentalists are stupid, EVs are stupid, anyone to
| the left of Kanye is stupid, if they really believed in
| climate change they'd do X".
|
| https://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/Pages/Sulphur-
| oxi...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Just a detail, but sulfur and nitrogen oxides are not
| particulate emissions.
|
| Sulfur comes from low quality fuel, but nitrogen and
| particulate emissions depend a lot on the engine too.
| clairity wrote:
| exactly, this is the kind of essential detail that gets
| glossed over by climate zealotry, and also one of the
| reasons why we direly need to shift the conversation away
| from CO2 (a gas that is essential to life on earth) to
| pollution (shit that kills millions of people right now).
|
| CO2 and climate change is a diversionary tactic implicitly
| endorsed by the fossil fuel industry to focus us on an
| amorphous, far-future issue to grind away progress on
| pollution reduction now. and it's working, as evidenced by
| the fever-pitched focus on climate change rather than
| pollution, particularly by the neoliberal news outlets
| (npr, nyt, bbc, etc.).
| nicoburns wrote:
| It's still not nearly as efficient of not moving things in the
| first place. Perhaps if shipping has to pay for it's carbon
| emissions then it'll shift the economic balance more towards
| local economies.
| FpUser wrote:
| And many local economies are no longer capable of producing
| anything meaningful at the prices "locals" can actually
| afford.
| spookie wrote:
| How so? Last I checked essential goods are pretty cheap if
| you buy locally.
| FpUser wrote:
| I do not know about other places but here in Canada it is
| exactly the other way around for the most part.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| Last I checked essential goods are pretty expensive if
| you buy locally.
| legitster wrote:
| Agreed. Though if there is an easy win here like using
| _slightly higher_ grade bunker oil to power the ships, the
| impact could be huge.
| cosmin800 wrote:
| We really need those electric ships.
| solotronics wrote:
| where is all the lithium and rare earth minerals going to come
| from to electrify all the cargo ships?
| charles_f wrote:
| No, we need to manufacture more locally. This creates the
| incentive for that.
| ictebres wrote:
| It is beyond me how this snail pace of changing the economy to be
| more sustainable can be interpreted as break neck speed. What was
| break neck speed was maybe the corona response, which was a good
| thing and could be happening on climate front more...
| AYBABTME wrote:
| To be fair, there's limited shipbuilding capacity in the world,
| with a few dozen very large shipyards capable of producing a
| few dozens ships a year. And they're busy as is. Also given the
| shear scale of those yards, it's not like you can just build
| new ones on demand. Those things are huge, they span the size
| of a medium city, and require an entire economy of skilled
| people around them.
|
| So even if we were to replace all of the world's fleet to be
| more energy efficient (which would almost by definition mean
| larger/longer ships, since they benefit from hydrodynamic
| efficiencies), it would take a lonnng time to replace the
| world's cargo fleet.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > _if we were to replace all of the world 's fleet to be more
| energy efficient (which would almost by definition mean
| larger/longer ships, since they benefit from hydrodynamic
| efficiencies)_
|
| The hydrodynamic efficiencies are a small part of the
| problem, there are many other things that can be done. You
| don't need to scrap a perfectly good hull, you can simply
| choose to run slower, burn higher-quality fuels, or strap on
| an oxidation catalyst (DOC) to cut CO, particulate filter
| (DPF) to reduce particulate emissions, or add selective
| catalytic reduction (SCR) to reduce NOx emissions.
|
| But until regulation and the market catch up, old ships will
| choose to run too fast, to burn whatever's cheapest, and to
| vent their exhaust directly into the atmosphere.
| legitster wrote:
| I mean, if we wanted to decarbonize at break neck speeds -
| nuclear power and geoengineering are right there. Instead we
| are working with a very narrow band of acceptable solutions.
| paganel wrote:
| Not sure the governments' response to Covid should be an
| example for "this is how things should be done". After all
| there are so many bank accounts that a liberal premier can
| block.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more. The response to corona decimated the
| economy and many businesses. The first priority for life on
| this planet is to have a decent quality of life. Not being able
| to afford food or other essentials is hardly a noble objective.
| ako wrote:
| You can't have quality of life if you have no life at all.
| paganel wrote:
| Honest question: Where does this apocalyptic attitude come
| from? Do people believe that they're going to actually die
| because of global warming?
| V__ wrote:
| People are already dying because of climate change, what
| are you talking about?
| paganel wrote:
| Yes, people are dying because of lots of causes, that's
| the unfortunate truth, but it seems to me that some
| people do believe that a large part of us will die
| because of climate change. Hence my question.
|
| I believe that to be false, a large part of us (as a
| species) will not die because of climate change (as past
| climate change events can attest to).
| V__ wrote:
| Maybe not a large part of the humans living now, but the
| next generation won't have it easy. I don't think that
| it's prudent to look at past events for two reasons:
| Population size and in-/dependence. There are a lot more
| humans now, than in the past. The year 0 is estimated to
| have had a population of about 170 to 400 million and
| about half for every 1000 years before that. It is a lot
| easier for smaller independent populations to move to a
| new place and start over, especially when most of them
| are hunter-gatherers or simple farmers. Their lives
| didn't change that much.
|
| What will a population of 8 billion interconnected and
| dependent people do? They can't all move to a new place,
| they can't all farm for themselves. Just the war in
| Ukraine caused significant food insecurity due to higher
| grain prices and lower export numbers in some poorer
| countries. Now imagine such problems on a global scale.
| ako wrote:
| That was in response to the impact of corona approach on
| the economy, where millions died and still people think
| economy is more important.
|
| But yes, in my opinion global warming is going to cause a
| lot of hurt. Countries will become unlivable (some
| islands will be gone in a few decades, the Netherlands
| will be mostly under water, dikes can not be heightened
| limitless, certain areas of India will soon be too hot
| for normal live), food production will be uncertain due
| to changing weather and drought, mass migration of people
| to more livable areas will follow, causing wars.
|
| We're already complaining about the amount of asylum
| seekers, the country is too small for all these people,
| how do you think it's going to be with many more people
| on the move?
| p0pcult wrote:
| Honest question: do you not?
| paganel wrote:
| No, not really.
| themitigating wrote:
| The people that come after us. Where does this new
| "openly selfish and proud of it" attitude come from?
| samus wrote:
| Many of the current conflicts going on in the world
| already are water wars in disguise, or are about dealing
| with degrading environments, like in the Sahel zone. Also
| large-scale refugee movements are about people trying to
| escape from places where supply for land suitable for
| agriculture is not increasing. This is on top of
| ecosystems actively degrading because of multiple other
| reasons as well. There are always going to be populations
| somewhere that manage to insulate themselves from these
| problems, but things will become rougher for many of us.
| purerandomness wrote:
| > Do people believe that they're going to actually die
| because of global warming?
|
| Climate change can be obdserved and measured. (Nitpick,
| but the 80's term "global warming" is used less often
| these days since it's confusing for some people, because
| climate change can have vastly different effects in
| different areas, not just simply "warming")
|
| We already know that heatwaves are killing people and
| droughts are affecting the entire food chain, again,
| killing people for years already. [1]
|
| You might take the position that these very real deaths
| are not _caused_ by climate change (disagreeing with
| scientific consensus), that they are merely a fluke in
| the climate history of our planet, but then you 'd have
| to, at least for yourself, define an "evidence threshold"
| which, when presented, would make you go "ok, now it's
| undeniably man-made climate change that is killing these
| people", because the slow graduality of the process makes
| it hard to intuitively see cause and effect.
|
| [1] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/07-11-2022-state
| ment---...
| it_citizen wrote:
| I had a good life. I am worried about my children and
| also trying to think about the billions of people that
| will see their quality of life significantly degraded.
|
| Geopolitical instability due to scarcer resources is
| certainly going to have a massive negative impact on
| everyone's life.
|
| Just look at how a "small war" in Ukraine is already
| having real life consequences all around the world.
|
| Now, imagine the effects of food and water insecurity
| across the world. Even Russia was not stupid enough to
| fully block supplies of wheat leaving Ukraine.
|
| And this is only one aspect of how climate change might
| impact you.
| irrational wrote:
| At my age? Probably not. My kids? Probably.
| smileysteve wrote:
| 2 degrees c average change in the next 28 years will
| cause people to die.
|
| Looking at the droughts, floods, heat waves, polar
| vortexes, hurricane occurrences, fires (California and
| Siberia) - people have died over the last years in events
| occurring more often than they should.
|
| Harvests and famine have some correlation to Syria and
| Ukraine wars and proxy wars over the last decade.
| paulmd wrote:
| People already have died because of global warming. Do
| you truly believe no additional marginal people have died
| due to intensified wildfire or hurricanes in recent
| decades?
|
| 15 years ago the show The Newsroom (another aaron sorkin
| flick) made the Toby Ruins Everything joke about how "the
| first person to die due to catastrophic failure of the
| planet has already been born", you know, supposed to be a
| bit hyperbolic and funny but yeah, dead on, the only part
| of that that hasn't come to pass since then is the
| "storms that blot out the sun and create permanent
| darkness" bit/joke. Massive wildfires in numbers and
| scale far too big to keep under control? Intense
| hurricanes and 100 year floods at yearly intervals?
| Tropical diseases that start to break loose and spread
| out of control? Anybody hear any of those lately?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uc1vrO6iL0U
|
| Honestly that was a bit of a mis-statement even then. The
| first person to die due to catastrophic failure of the
| climate was actually probably born in the 70s or 80s most
| likely.
|
| And the party is really just getting started, this is
| nothing, there is around a 10-year latency so we are just
| seeing the impact of 2012-era carbon levels right now.
| It'll be another 10 years before we see the impact of the
| current decade of continued emissions growth. Things are
| going to continue to get a lot worse and
| fires/hurricanes/etc are only going to intensify.
|
| Which is of course why it's important to actually get
| things fixed, because, as bad as things are, they _will_
| get worse unless the necessary system upgrades and repair
| work is performed... everyone has had that talk with
| management before. Some companies choose to change, some
| don 't. Unfortunately there's nobody hiring on Mars or
| Europa at present...
| themitigating wrote:
| Are you saying that helping the environment will cause
| harsh suffering to you and others? How do you know this?
| ako wrote:
| This thread:
|
| * "What was break neck speed was maybe the corona
| response, which was a good thing"
|
| * "I couldn't disagree more. ... The first priority for
| life on this planet is to have a decent quality of life."
|
| * "You can't have quality of life if you have no life at
| all."
| themitigating wrote:
| I wasn't clear. I was questioning the overly simplistic
| "no life at all" as if some environmental changes are
| made the reduction in quality of life will be significant
| it_citizen wrote:
| Look at any recent studies about the projected cost of
| climate change in the decades to come or read a bit about the
| geopolitical consequences of what 2 degrees means.
|
| The consequences of the response to Corona will seem like a
| nice a problem to have in comparison.
|
| And contrary to a bad economic cycle, once the CO2 is in the
| atmosphere, there is no fixing it at a meaningful scale.
| swader999 wrote:
| The future costs seem pretty small and based on useless
| models.
|
| The costs of curtailing natural gas right now will be
| evident in real death toll this winter though.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| The future costs start with roughly 1 billion refugees
| from regions that become either underwater, too hot to
| live, or too little water to live.
| swader999 wrote:
| Underwater when sea level rises less than a foot a
| century? Get serious. Cold kills way more than heat.
| Death from extreme weather has been largely mitigated by
| industrialization and modern technology. Increased food
| production from more CO2 has helped reduce starvation.
|
| Please, show me one genuine climate refugee right now.
| [deleted]
| p0pcult wrote:
| >The first priority for life on this planet is to have life
|
| Fixed that for you.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| Climate doomerism rots the brain.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| > The first priority for life on this planet is to have a
| decent quality of life.
|
| Yes. Unfortunately, you can't have a decent quality of life
| without a quality environment to live in.
| MrBuddyCasino wrote:
| What if the downsides of decarbonisation outweigh the
| supposed benefits? Is this even possible in your list of
| possible outcomes? We have some experience of central state
| power steering large parts of the economy for The Greater
| Good.
| orwin wrote:
| Very true! The New Deal eased the tensions and permitted
| a pretty fast recovery, while building most
| infrastructure modern US depends on, hopefully it will
| have the same effect.
| [deleted]
| waboremo wrote:
| Why does the economy take precedent over life itself?
| p0pcult wrote:
| Because the gigawealthy have captured politics more
| completely than probably any other time witnessed by those
| of us currently alive.
| themitigating wrote:
| How is that a reason? I think you're using some form of
| the argument
|
| "Why should I recycle this can if X person has a private
| jet"
|
| The answer is because they are both wrong but you only
| have control over one.
| xfitm3 wrote:
| Because to survive in life you have to contribute to the
| survival of others. Anything else is selfish.
| soupbowl wrote:
| Well we are all going to die from climate change anyways.
| Some extra corona deaths and working economy seem like a
| win/win If you are a climate doomer.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| This will increase carbon emissions. Shipping is the slowest,
| cheapest, least carbon intensive mode of transport per ton.
| Adding a tax to the greenest available option is as silly as tax
| on wind turbines.
| dojomouse wrote:
| It's adding a tax to the fuel type for the category, not the
| category as a whole. The tax will increase the commercial
| incentive for cleaner shipping which will reduce emissions.
|
| The tax isn't remotely large enough to result in freight
| migrating to air. And trucking within the eu is already subject
| to a carbon tax.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Two effects here: First the substitution effect because the
| price gap narrows between other modes of transport which are
| less carbon efficient. Second, effect of switching to more
| efficient ocean cargo. The latter is quite small because fuel
| has been about 50% of the cost of ocean freight for a long
| time. The incentive for carbon efficiency has always existed
| for ocean freight.
| owisd wrote:
| This is part of the EU-ETS which is being rolled out to all
| sectors so you can't avoid it by switching to a different mode
| of transport.
| jandrese wrote:
| Well you could dodge the tax by switching to sailing ships or
| the like, in fact I encourage companies to find ways to dodge
| those evil government tax men by switching to non-polluting
| forms of transportation. Stick it to big government!
| dojomouse wrote:
| Yup - or higher load factors, or electric drive, or higher
| efficiency engines, or some synthetic fuel produced in a
| low emission way... all of which the tax provides a nice
| incentive for :-)
|
| I like the framing ;-) Maybe it could work for climate
| change deniers: "Tired of THE MAN intruding on your
| personal freedom to pollute? Regain your independence with
| solar, electric transport, good insulation, and a low
| impact diet. Freedommmmm!"
| LatteLazy wrote:
| If there is one thing we've learnt in 40 years of unilateral
| action, it's that unilateral action doesn't work...
| kybernetyk wrote:
| Great. Another nail in the coffin of the economy.
| nxm wrote:
| Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of everything
| has gone up once it's implemented. Meanwhile India and China
| continue to build many coal fired power plants each year
| isthispermanent wrote:
| To be fair though China is doing a lot of work to get to
| renewables. They are currently the largest producers of
| solar/nuclear/wind electricity:
| https://www.maxinomics.com/map/solar-electricity-generation
| smileysteve wrote:
| It seems your position that change can never happen - that no
| one should be an idealist as long as anybody else is not an
| idealist?
| themitigating wrote:
| "The other kids are doing bad things, we should do them"
|
| Is that your argument? Because someone else is polluting we
| should?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Talking of India:
|
| _Indian coal magnate Gautam Adani goes green_
|
| > Asia's richest man, coal magnate Gautam Adani, made his
| vast fortune betting on coal as an energy hungry India grew
| swiftly after its economy was liberalized in the 1990s
|
| > He's now set his sights on becoming the world's biggest
| renewable energy player, by 2030, adroitly aligning his
| investments with the government's own priorities.
|
| > As India grapples with climate change, the Adani Group,
| whose operations also span ports, power, farming and defense
| manufacturing, plans to invest $70 billion in solar, wind and
| other green energy projects over the next decade.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gautam-adani-ap-
| narendra-...
| yongjik wrote:
| Then you should be happy as this policy will directly
| interfere with India's and China's exports to Europe,
| resulting in less demand for coal power and also less money
| for them to build coal plants.
| jylam wrote:
| > Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of
| everything has gone up once it's implemented
|
| People are not a bunch of idiots. Climate change is very
| real. Using other sources of energy requires investments. It
| is mandatory. All those are facts, as far as I know.
|
| If your only arguments are "it will hurt the economy" and
| "people won't understand", you didn't take the measure of the
| problem and are part of it. That's very short-sighted, and
| tends to prove you don't really know what you are talking
| about.
| badcppdev wrote:
| The article says: "But the breakneck speed at which they're
| trying to transition to renewable energy led directly to this
| year's natural gas fiasco."
|
| I'm pretty sure that Russian invading Ukraine made a big
| difference to the natural gas situation this year. Am I missing
| something or is the article talking about something I don't
| understand?
| isthispermanent wrote:
| Europe chose to deprioritize building natural gas capacity in
| the form of LNG ships and ports in favor of wind and solar.
| This order of priorities made them increasingly dependent on
| Russia's natural gas coming from two pipelines, Nord Stream 1
| and 2.
|
| So as many across the western world predicted, Russia used (and
| continues to use) that dependency as leverage to get leniency
| on their actions in Ukraine.
|
| Natural gas will continue to be a critical bridge fuel to get
| to a world that is majority powered by renewables. Impossible
| to do without it.
|
| Europe gambled Russia wouldn't do something like this and they
| lost. That loss caused the price of European nat gas to spike
| 2000% at one point and it's still up 800% today.
| badcppdev wrote:
| Thank you. You've expressed that really clearly. I feel your
| explanation is definitely missing from the article.
|
| I wish I could say that Russia made a decision that
| contributed as well but that's like the frog blaming the
| scorpion.
| isthispermanent wrote:
| Thanks and you're quite welcome. I mean, Russia exploited
| the situation and new it was doing so so you're not wrong.
| svorakang wrote:
| You are right, the article mostly wrong in my eyes. The article
| might be referring to Germany's closure of several nuclear
| plants, which to some extent have been replaced by coal and gas
| (but perhaps more correctly: extended the life of coal and gas
| plants, awaiting an ever accelerating renewable rollout).
| lowkey wrote:
| Shipping vessels but not private jets. Rules for thee, but not
| for me and my friends.[0]
|
| [0] https://bitluxtravel.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-
| jets-...
| Proven wrote:
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm curious how the carbon credits are priced and where the money
| goes.
|
| Is it purely a disincentive or does it somehow work to offset the
| emissions?
| isthispermanent wrote:
| It's mostly a disincentive. At least a chunk of the money goes
| to member countries to help transition away from fossil fuel
| use.
|
| There are a variety of rules and mechanisms to ensure the money
| that is distributed gets spent that way. How effective those
| rules end up being in real life I'm unsure.
|
| The World Wildlife Fund is one of many publications that's
| skeptical of the efficacy of how the money is spent:
| https://www.wwf.eu/?8275441/ETS-revenues-report-2022
| o_1 wrote:
| There is no mention of alternative power sources for maritime
| cargo.
| cormacrelf wrote:
| It's like a tax paid up in advance. The government can create
| carbon credits out of thin air, they sell them to you, you get
| to emit without breaking the law / getting fined. The
| government decides how many to create, and sets the price that
| way because the market decides how much being able to emit
| carbon is worth. The incentive is not to have to pay for them.
| Reduce your emissions, improve your bottom line. Simple as
| that.
|
| This isn't an offset scheme but you can buy some kinds of
| offset credits and use them like the basic emissions credits as
| essentially a license to emit. But I think there's some
| rethinking of offsets as a whole concept going on, a
| realisation that they're actually not producing real results
| and just enabling emitters to keep going longer and more
| cheaply. If the claimed offset is not realised, then this is a
| massive net loss because of the lost time spent propping up
| emissions. So your offset efficacy has to be really high to be
| tenable, but while estimates vary, the harder we look at them,
| the closer to 0% effective they appear to be.
| jandrese wrote:
| Carbon credits are currently mostly just a tax.
|
| The fundamental problem with carbon markets is that there is
| literally no supply. In a properly functioning carbon market
| these carbon emitters would be buying units of "tons of carbon
| removed from the atmosphere". Just paying the cleanup costs of
| the pollution they are emitting. Very simple. The problem:
| nobody has any large scale carbon capture projects to buy from.
|
| What should be happening is that carbon capture projects should
| be selling their services on the market and these emitters
| should be buying them at market prices. This would create a
| carbon capture economy and encourage people to find more
| efficient ways to do it, since a more efficient solution would
| produce a superior product on the marketplace and capture more
| sales. But all current carbon capture technology is small scale
| and outrageously expensive so it would crush the fossil fuel
| industry. But without an incentive like this the carbon capture
| tech will develop very slowly as it has done over the past 30
| years since there is little to no demand for it.
|
| The worst part is that even if we did decide to zero out our
| emissions and take the massive economic hit, it would still not
| account for the two centuries of CO2 buildup already in the
| atmosphere.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > But without an incentive like this the carbon capture tech
| will develop very slowly
|
| I don't think that's a big issue. If the tech was
| economically viable it wouldn't be hard to lobby for such
| regulation. The positive net effect is easy to prove and
| argue for.
|
| I think what's stopping carbon capture has more to do with
| the expected efficacy of it. I mean, when you have ~400 ppm
| CO2 in the air it's a bit like reassembling a broken glass.
| Sure, you can improve every process with engineering, but
| there are also physical boundary conditions that look pretty
| bleak for most forms of CC.
|
| > even if we did decide to zero out our emissions and take
| the massive economic hit, it would still not account for the
| two centuries of CO2 buildup already in the atmosphere.
|
| Perhaps one step at a time? We are absolutely nowhere near
| zero emissions, we don't even have a plan. Our entire
| civilization runs on hydrocarbons today. Nothing against CC
| research per se, but it doesn't look like a basket where we
| should put many eggs in.
| jandrese wrote:
| There is a bit of a chicken and egg problem with the tech
| that it won't become economically viable until it is out of
| the lab and being used at scale, but it will never get out
| of the lab until it is economically viable.
|
| I'm a big believer in the power of markets to solve
| problems like this, but getting the market started is
| almost impossible because of the very high level of short
| and medium term pain associated with it. You might argue
| for a gradual or partial opening, but that gets forever
| bogged down in arguments/lawsuits over who should be
| included and who gets a pass and thus never really gets
| started.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| The fatal flaw with this line of reasoning is that carbon
| capture is guaranteed (by entropy) to be energy negative. We
| aren't in an either or of zero out emissions or carbon
| capture. We need to zero out emissions *and* carbon capture.
| Large scale carbon capture is only viable with large excess
| amounts of renewable power.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Seems like a reasonable solution would be to make a market
| for a subset of emissions and increase it slowly over time.
| For example, you could require 0.1% be purchased in carbon
| markets in scale that number up over time as the carbon
| Market place grows and costs go down. It seems strictly
| better than a flat tax that goes into the general fund.
| themitigating wrote:
| Tesla would probably not exist if not for those credits.
| bombcar wrote:
| Perhaps if they never existed, but it would continue to exist
| as it is now without them.
| briandear wrote:
| Let's ask this question: how much is carbon worth? And can a
| reduction in carbon be precisely correlated to a reduction in
| global temperature? If a ship emits slightly less carbon, can
| that impact be measured? If it can't be measured, how can it
| fairly be priced?
| goodpoint wrote:
| Too little too late.
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