20 ms·

Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

315 points by ammaristotle 8y ago

maaaats 8y ago
> In 2010, Norway pledged to support Indonesia with up to 1 billion USD depending on results. It's easy to sit in a developed western country, buying products from other countries, and then complain about their emissions. I'm glad that we're trying to be responsible. It may not be enough or not the right way to do it (some thoughts on this?), but it's something.
- StreamBright 8y ago
  This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?
    - XorNot 8y ago
      It's less beef, specifically. On a practical level cutting out meat entirely can actually increase emissions because you can raise farm animals off of human inedible parts of plants like stems and other marginal food (i.e. parts we don't get any nutrition from). Beef however is one of the worst conversion methods in this regard, but animals like chickens and goats are quite efficient.
      - est31 8y ago
        Insects are most efficient btw, but there are cultural reservations about them in the west.
        zcid 8y ago
        I looked into raising crickets, but most of my research suggested that they aren't any more efficient than chickens. It seems that a lot of the studies we currently have are poorly done or not transferable to mass production. In addition, the amount of extra work for processing crickets made the project less than optimal at least for a small operation.
        kibwen 8y ago
        If Silicon Valley can propel nutrient sludge like Soylent into notoriety, then I'm sure it can do the same for cricket nuggets. :P
        renholder 8y ago
        >...like Soylent into notoriety... As long as it isn't green. =]
        benj111 8y ago
        Doesn't require Silicon Valley. Pink slime can now be sold as beef mince in the US. How hard do you think it would be to get powdered cricket labelled as 'protein enhancer' or some such? Plus people will happily eat things with cochineal [1] in it, so I can't see highly processed insect additives being a problem. Won't be called Cricket nuggets though. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
        Cthulhu_ 8y ago
        They could grow insects to process into unrecognisable "filler", right?
        int_19h 8y ago
    - hannob 8y ago
      > And buy products from where instead? Buy less products overall. > I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat? The most effective thing is probably less carbon intensive transport (that means first and foremost flying). But less meat (or better no meat) is still among the more impactful things.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single-occupant cars. The majority of people do not fly multiple times per week. Having said that, I do agree with the main thrust of your comment: consume less.
        kaybe 8y ago
        They also don't drive several thousand or tens of thousand kilometers in one go once or more a year either in addition to the normal driving, so I'd say that argument is not helpful here.
        TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        That’s a good point. I wonder how many people are willing to eat less beef vs how many are willing to give in their once a year or less long-haul-flight holiday.
        distances 8y ago
        That's not how it'll work though. Do vegans get more flight allowances? Do people with kids have to forgo meat as well as vacations? Obviously no consumer choice driven solution is going to work. The costs have to be included in the goods and services if we want any actual reduction.
        lazyjones 8y ago
        > *Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single- http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/footprints-air-travel/ http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/footprints-air-t... seems to disagee. In fact, driving a typical car for one year produces less CO2 than one long-distance flight per passenger.
    - adrianN 8y ago
      Eating less meat is pretty high on the list [1]. But I think that for many people it is easier to buy less crap they don't really need, or to fix things instead of replacing them. Buying used instead of new is also an option. [1] https://www.drawdown.org/solutions https://www.drawdown.org/solutions
    - kaybe 8y ago
      The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)
      - fghtr 8y ago
        Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...
        Pelam 8y ago
        Interesting fact, jet powered short haul flights are worse per distance due to the fact that most energy is used in takeoff and landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati... I also read somewhere that propeller based airplanes flying lower in the atmosphere would be better option for short haul flights.
        kaybe 8y ago
        I wonder what the difference between 'switch electric car to car free' and 'live carfree' is? The effect over time or not using rentals/other people's cars maybe?
        lotsofpulp 8y ago
        Manufacturing and maintaining a vehicle produced pollution itself, so not creating demand for one is less polluting than still creating a demand for a vehicle of any type.
        peanutz454 8y ago
        I find this difficult to believe! One transatlantic round trip flight is about 60% as bad as living car free? Assuming you do not travel at all - right? But you will travel. You will cycle to work, and you will burn more calories, and you will therefore eat more food, ending up contributing just as much too increasing emissions!
    - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
      China is fastracking to being a developed nation faster than anyone before, and missing out many of the developed world's mistakes. They'll have poisonous air for a shorter time than the US or Europe did. They'll have the least obsolete infrastructure of anyone. Making stuff in China isn't necessarily disastrous. Making huge amounts of overly cheap shite that doesn't last, or do the job properly is especially disastrous as it encourages waste. Shipping huge amounts of stuff around the globe is disastrous. Making stuff in places that don't yet have mature and tight environmental protections is disastrous. (Probably a significant reason it moved there in the first place) I'd pay more for a MBP or another Thinkpad made in Greenock (where IBM used to make them), or anywhere in the EU. I'm in a minority so small it may as well not exist in wanting locally made stuff. For most stuff, I try not to buy at all, but I can rarely choose local any more.
      - empath75 8y ago
        Even if they assembled them elsewhere, most of the parts and raw materials would have to come from China these days.
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        In the early days of Chinese manufacturing they would have been importing most. Suppliers tend to cluster where manufacturers are, and import specialist parts. Of course as you just posted in the other comment, CO2 taxes reflecting the full environmental costs would tend to encourage more clustering, more local production, and generally buying less wastefully. As popular as plague no doubt, but stuff needs to get expensive again. Perhaps better to say "expensive enough".
    - mazsa 8y ago
      FYI: "Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps, research finds" https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...
      - kasey_junk 8y ago
        But it does hardly anything got the carbon costs of their feed.
        mazsa 8y ago
        "hardly anything" = 80% of feed crops, foregone absorption of greenhouse gases (i.e. 32% of all of their carbon costs, cf. https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D2913D-11FD-4F76-8E61F6CA3450980D_source.jpg https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D29... )
        chosenbreed37 8y ago
        Is the sourcing of seaweed in sufficient quantities free of cost?
        philipkglass 8y ago
        The active anti-methane compound from seaweed is likely bromoform: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-0830-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-0830-7 It would be a cheap food supplement since the methane inhibition required only about 2% seaweed in cattle food, which in turn implies a bromoform feed content of only about 35 parts per million. Though no doubt some farmers would prefer to be able to say that they add seaweed rather than a particular chemical to their cattle feed.
        mazsa 8y ago
        of course nothing is free but they think it may be feasible: https://www.symbrosiasolutions.com/team https://www.symbrosiasolutions.com/team
  - entity345 8y ago
    Totally ineffective and counterproductive. Doing what you suggest would not necessarily have any impact on emissions (as they might just shift to another country) while ensuring that 1.3 billion people remain poor and that their country remains undeveloped. Far better to impose strict requirements on production methods. But if that is more expensive there should also be financial help available to countries that may not afford it.
  - samatman 8y ago
    China is the sole producer of certain electronic components, this is not viable at present. Granted if you really really want to reduce your personal emissions, stop using technology from post-1950, maybe buy some land...
    - nabla9 8y ago
      > China is the sole producer of certain electronic components I don't believe this is correct in meaningful sense. Do you have any examples? China assembles many components, but that's not something that can't be moved to elsewhere. Vietnam is already replacing China. Best way to deal with exported CO2 emissions is to put carbon tax on imports and not to try to control where they are manufactured.
      - varjag 8y ago
        Nearly all passives, generic active components, and a bulk of the cheaper processes ICs are being produced in China for a while now. PCBA production is another issue, but much of it happens in China too. Vietnam doesn't seem to be really that different from China in politics, environment or other respects. It is hard to see how moving things from China to Vietnam is an improvement.
        nabla9 8y ago
        China is not the sole producer in any of these categories and not even the biggest. Japan is still the biggest exporter of passive components.
        learc83 8y ago
        >It is hard to see how moving things from China to Vietnam is an improvement. It's an improvement in the way that multiple competitors are almost always an improvement. Say the world wants to pressure China to reduce CO2 emissions or release the Uighurs from internment camps, having another producer of certain critical goods weakens their negotiating position. Also Vietnam is a lot more likely to be open to democratic reforms than China is in the foreseeable future. >Nearly all passives Also this is not true.
  - kakarot 8y ago
    If our neoliberal globalist government didn't effectively force us to outsource the production of the products we consume with unrestricted labor markets and generally stagnant wages in the face of explosive inflation, maybe we would have that luxury. Poor people have been put in a position where they really don't have a lot of options. Blaming poor Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits.
    - bilbo0s 8y ago
      >Blaming Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits... I'd amend that a bit and say, "Blaming [poor] Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits...". Wealthy westerners and their policy decisions, as you rightly point out, are largely responsible for the current state of affairs vis-à-vis the economy.
      - kakarot 8y ago
        I agree. Edited :)
  - DyslexicAtheist 8y ago
    let me fix that for you: if you want to reduce emissions stop consuming
    - empath75 8y ago
      Institute a carbon tax that fully captures the externalities of releasing CO2 in the air and people will be forced to.
      - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
        Institute a carbon tax and it'll vanish into someone's pocket while the manufactured goods still have the same emissions.
        dontreact 8y ago
        You can have a revenue neutral carbon tax where the funds go back into people’s pockets, but the change in consumption pattern would happen because for example renewable energy would not increase in price.
        empath75 8y ago
        I imagine they wouldn’t because goods that use significantly less carbon will cost significantly less. I don’t care what you do with the taxes, the point is making sure that goods are priced appropriately.
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Use some of it to subsidise insulation and better standard buildings, cleaner air and power, better railways etc. Fund a UBI. I'm fascinated at downvotes for this suggestion. What's actually wrong with spending part on lower impact infrastructure and part on a replacement for a broken welfare system?
        skosch 8y ago
        Your heart is in the right place, but what you advocate isn't currently palatable to anyone, left or right, on the political spectrum. Instead, push for a fee-and-dividend model – not entirely UBI, but similar in spirit. It's what most economists support, and it has enough bipartisan support [0] that there is actually a bill before Congress now that has a chance of passing. [0] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/
  - andrepd 8y ago
    People do get that, but waiting for people to spontaneously start doing the right thing is just not a very good strategy. That's why we need a carbon tax. To force people to.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      Always another regressive tax needed as the only way to solve a problem. There are other options that don't so egregiously favor the ones with money.
      - jogjayr 8y ago
        Carbon taxes can be offset with a per-person tax credit. This makes it revenue neutral while ensuring that big consumers pay more taxes. They do it in British Columbia already [1] 1. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/planning-and-action/carbon-tax https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-chang...
      - skosch 8y ago
        You make it revenue neutral – look up fee and dividend, the method favoured by most economists. The bottom ~2/3rd of households would, on average, get more money back than the tax would cost them.
        npongratz 8y ago
        > The bottom ~2/3rd of households would, on average, get more money back than the tax would cost them. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding: 2/3rds of households would first have to pay up, and then they'll get more money back than they paid in? If that's true, it sounds like it would be instituting needless added complexity, with a layer added for politicians and bureaucrats to take a cut before giving it back.
        dontreact 8y ago
        The value add of the layer in complexity is that the costs of some goods but not others would go up. This would make buying and investing in renewables more favorable economically.
  - tomp 8y ago
    That’s why I oppose free trade. We need a legislative solution that would ban (or tax highly) products from countries/companies that skim environmental / employment standards...
    - bwb 8y ago
      I like that, call it a fix for the problem of the common good. About time we recognize the entire planet is our home and if someone trashes part x it eventually spreads to part y.
    - rypskar 8y ago
      Who should set the rules? If you should follow national rules in importing country, would not this mean that most European countries would have to ban products from USA?
      - tomp 8y ago
        Well, yeah, that's the idea. If Europeans want to maintain some standards, it doesn't make sense that companies can simply relocate abroad to escape enforcement. On the other hand, if a company would want to sell to EU, it would simply certify/prove that its supply chain follows the standards!
        rypskar 8y ago
        Since hn don't show who upvote you, I'll add a small comment that I hope EU and others would dare to do more with this than they do now
  - simonbyrne 8y ago
    Why? China's per capita emissions are less than half of the US.
    - StreamBright 8y ago
      And the volume?
      - isr 8y ago
        How about this? Tax goods from (or with large inputs from) China AND the US. Heavily. Harshly. Punitively. Between them, those 2 are most culpable in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. If you are truly motivated by a genuine desire to address what IS the single most grevious threat, then you ought to agree. Wholeheartedly. If you're just going to harp on about China, and ignore the US as being equally the problem (and if we take history into account, the US is the BIGGEST problem), then there's another word for that motivation. And that word is not "environmentalism"
      - rypskar 8y ago
        By volume don't really make sense, the only way is to count per person. Counting by volume depend on how you decide to put groups together for counting. You would always be able to say that "the others" are larger than the one you are and say that what you do don't matter. But the easiest to change is what you do, not what everyone else do
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    My pragmatic take is that if we keep buying their stuff - and we will - they will soon become rich enough to clean up their environment, just like all rich countries do. If you're familiar with the history of industrialism, all currently clean and rich countries went through a phase of horrible dirtiness as they rose out of awful poverty. Fortunately, China seems to go through the same steps as the west 3-5 times faster than we did. Sometimes, the only way out is through!
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      You think the environment will continue to be relatively hospitable to humans while we go "through" China, then India, then Africa/South America?
      - BurningFrog 8y ago
        China is already halfway through. India isn't too far behind. The rest of the world is comparatively small. So, yeah, I think we have pretty big margins, TBH. Just my personal hunch. I don't ask you to agree.
    - tim333 8y ago
      We're talking CO2 here. The US has not exactly stopped emitting as it got rich.
      - JBReefer 8y ago
        US emissions are radically down though thanks to efficiency and moving from coal to nat gas + renewables. We're down almost 20% from 2000. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-...
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products. Help me find a consumer toaster made in the United States. I searched for six months and only found ones made in China. If I want a giant hotel toaster, there is an American option. But nothing sized for a household kitchen. There are lots of people who make efforts to buy domestically. But so much manufacturing has gone to China that for some items there is no alternative.
    - yesenadam 8y ago
      I'm not sure how to say this constructively, but your comment reads as if there are only 2 countries in the world! Why is 'Made in USA' your only alternative to 'Made in China'?
      - reaperducer 8y ago
        It isn't. But as I stated, there were exactly zero choices other than Made in China when I searched. And I did a very thorough search.
        NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Dualit Classic. A very expensive toaster that's been made by hand, for ages, in the UK. Repairable too! https://www.dualit.com/products/classic https://www.dualit.com/products/classic
        reaperducer 8y ago
        Ossim. When I live in the UK I'll pick one up. Until then, the point stands: Made in China is all that is available to me.
        oarsinsync 8y ago
        Amazon.com has them in stock
  - dawnerd 8y ago
    Unfortunately that's not really an option for most things. And even when you find something thats made "in America" it's usually just assembled here with parts from China.
  - phil248 8y ago
    Sure an economic collapse in China would benefit the environment, but so would the economic collapse of the West. There are better solutions that don't involve trading human suffering for environmental protection.
- sigfubar 8y ago
  How developed can the US be considering that we have destroyed our manufacturing base and cannot even provide clean water and healthcare for our own citizens?
- masterblasters 8y ago
  This is very bad there is nothing to be gained by reducing emissions. If Carbon level continue to rise, we'll evolve to live on CO2. If you stop carbon emissions you are effectively preventing God's or Nature's job.
- SVResponsible 8y ago
  Trying to be responsible is the minimum you can ask of any human.
- lazyjones 8y ago
  People in developed western countries have been buying rainforests to protect the environment for decades: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/24/cantwejustbuyalltherainf https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/24/cantwe... I'm not sure how it's being protected though. OTOH the earth has been getting greener recently: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-globe-greener/article26147272/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-gl... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171641.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171641.h... http://www.keepmepostedeu.org/portfolio/growing-forests/ http://www.keepmepostedeu.org/portfolio/growing-forests/
  - freeflight 8y ago
    I remember buying a childrens-print magazine, as a kid in the 80s, that had a bit more expensive special issue, but each sold copy was supposedly used to buy a couple of m² of the rainforest. They marketed it in an "own a piece of the rainforest" way and kid me was super stoked about the idea of owning a piece of rainforest, imagining how I would be living there. I think it might have been Yps [0], but I'm not 100% certain. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yps_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yps_(comics)
spacecrew5 8y ago
Indonesia has been doing better with the enviroment in recent years, probably thanks to international pressure and incentives such as this. Anything which maintains Indonesia's biodiversity is good to see.
O_H_E 8y ago
Looks like a great way to incitive developing countries to reduce their emissions. Although when the developing countries' tax payer start complaining, it's going to be hard to defend these expenditures.
- codebolt 8y ago
  As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.
  - richardhod 8y ago
    As a Western developed nation inhabitant, you and indeed most HN readers benefit enormously for your rich lifestyle on past carbon emissions by your predecessors, which those in that country have not benefitted from. This is a good way to incentivise those countries who - quite reasonably - feel it's unfair that they don't get to use up any of that carbon to develop their nation towards a rich modern lifestyles. So, here is one solution.
    - varjag 8y ago
      Norway did not contribute all that much to carbon emissions directly. The electric grid historically been and still is hydro, and the country was never really industrialized in the first place.
      - rerx 8y ago
        Norway's wealth comes from exporting oil and gas. That's not very indirect.
        maaaats 8y ago
        It's semantics, but isn't that the definition of indirect, but with a clear link?
hannob 8y ago
It's a start, though obviously if we want to be serious about deforestation we need much more of this. A somewhat similar initiative regarding the Yasuni rainforest in Equador unfortunately went nowhere a couple of years ago because rich countries weren't willing enough to pay.
aboutruby 8y ago
Wouldn't that push countries to cut a lot of trees to then have the highest bidder willing to reduce carbon emissions pay a premium?
- Gpetrium 8y ago
  You raise a valid point, Brazil may be an interesting test-case for the point you have raised. The new government shows strong interest in cutting down the Amazon (at least partially) for the sake of Agribusiness, Cattle & Logging. Now will they use Amazon and the way the world perceives it as a way to exchange concessions? It remains to be seeing.
duopixel 8y ago
When I first moved to Europe I was struck by just how domesticated the land is. I can sleep in the open without being afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders, wolves or bears. Even when land is "wild", the larger mammals will be rabbits, deer, wild goats and such. Excepting natural parks, hunters are the only predators. At least in Spain, a tremendous percentage of land is put at the service of mankind. The dehesas give cork, honey, acorns to feed the pigs, and grass for the cattle. The situation where developing countries need to conserve their land in a natural state in the interest of biodiversity and climate reminds me a game of Civilization where you are no longer allowed to exploit them to your advantage (with good reason!). We need to keep this land intact, but the only way to do it is to make conservation more valuable than exploitation.
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  Japan has 67% Forest cover. South Korea 63%. Indonesia...46%. Clearing your land for agriculture only benefits a select few. It is not a good way to grow into a first world economy. Bringing up what Europeans did 1000-500 years ago is not a good analogy.
- kaybe 8y ago
  Don't underestimate the wild pigs though! Actually a great part of European biodiversity depends on the cultivation of the land. The natural state would be forests and swamps. Grazing leads to open lands with a multitude of grasses, other small plants, bushes, hedges and solitary huge trees, which support different insects and birds. In Germany we have a biome type, Heide (seems to correspond to heath [0]), that was created by degrading the land by removing the good topsoil to fertilize fields (as opposed to field rotation which was used in the south), and which is now a valuable habitat for many species. However, much of this also depends on a non-intensive cultivation, where less-than-ideal areas (rocky, too steep, too wet..) are left alone or only used occasionally (eg to cut the hedges). This kind of use is going down, which is ap problem. Another thing that changed my mind in the last few years: Even the Amazon region, which in the West has this aura of untouched wilderness, was recently found to have been heavily populated and changed by humans in the past, eg to make the ground more fertile in some areas. The key is to work with the forest, not against it, and there is so much we can do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath
itry2develop 8y ago
So stupid.
porpoisely 8y ago
Considering all the money norway got to pay indonesia came from selling oil, this is really nothing more than a billion dollar PR exercise. Not to mention that in a globalized world, the deforestation will ultimately get shifted somewhere else. Just like europe loves to pretend it is lowering emissions when it's just shifting manufacturing to china, norway loves to pretend to be environmenally friendly with its oil money. If europe or norway truly cared about emissions or the environment, they'd end global trade and drilling for oil, but they aren't going to give up their luxurious first world lifestyle are they? Edit: To everyone downvoting, how about this scenario. We give norway $1 billion for them to shut down their oil rigs? Surely norway will sacrifice their economic wealth and prosperity to help the environment right? Or do we only expect that from poor countries?
- vegardx 8y ago
  The only take-away from this is that Norway should just sit back and relax, no matter what you do, it will be wrong. Less than half of the exports from Norway are oil. It accounts to less than a quarter of revenue. See: https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/ https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenue...
  - porpoisely 8y ago
    No. The take away is that norway isn't doing anything but buying publicity with their little neocolonial effort. They lost nothing by this. They only gained. If norway really cared, they should stop drilling oil immediately and turn over their entire $1 trillion wealth fund over to nuclear and clean energy companies. But they'll never do that because they use their money for their own political self-interests. Nevermind that half of a nation's export or a quarter of a nation's revenue from a single source is a ridiculous amount, the money norway uses to play neocolonist comes from their sovereign wealth fund(s) which come entirely from oil. Also, indonesia ( and ASEANs ) problem is poverty, education and economic development. That $1 billion is nothing in the greater scheme of things. Heck it probably made things worse because deforestation went elsewhere, indonesia's development was slightly stunted and indonesia will probably deforest at a greater rate in the future. Maybe if norway truly cared, they will force netherlands to pay reparations for colonization to indonesia and hand over the assets of the largest oil company in the world ( royal dutch shell ) to indonesia so that indonesia could develop faster. The dutch got rich stealing oil from indonesia. Maybe return some of that back? Or buying $1 billion in advertising for self-congratulatory purposes while making things worse is better. What has fundamentally changed? Nothing. It's like a billionaire tossing a homeless man $1 and being celebrated for their charity. Especially so if the billionaire caused a financial crisis that cause the guy to lose his job, home and become homeless in the first place. I'm sure the indonesians living in poverty are ecstatic that wealthy norwegians are using their oil money to toss them some crumbs.
Pxtl 8y ago
Good on Norway for living up to their promises. There are a lot of places I'd expect to welch on this kind of deal.
Proven 8y ago
Complete insanity! Since when is it okay to steal money from Norway's taxpayers who disagree with this nonsense and then send it to one of most corrupt countries in the world?
75dvtwin 8y ago
I am yet to see an example of corruption-free model converting environment impact reduction (or increase) in to monetary credit or (debit). ".. To offset their own carbon emissions, European companies have been overpaying China to incinerate a powerful greenhouse gas known as hfc 23. And in a bizarre twist, those payments have spurred the manufacture of a harmful refrigerant that is being smuggled into the U.S. and used illegally. …" https://e360.yale.edu/features/perverse_co2_payments_send_flood_of_money_to_china https://e360.yale.edu/features/perverse_co2_payments_send_fl...
- tim333 8y ago
  Still the perfect is the enemy of the good and all that. It's probably better to have a flawed but functional mechanism than nothing. I'll give you that hfc 23 story is bad.
spsrich 8y ago
Norwegian taxpayer funds sent direct to Indonesian politicians Swiss bank accounts. Marvellous !
- virtastic 8y ago
  yes, bribing corrupt 3rd world politicians to repress their populations and prevent them from engaging in economic development. the height of western virtue.
outside1234 8y ago
How about Norway just stop pumping oil to reduce our carbon footprint?
- magicalhippo 8y ago
  That's an argument many make here in Norway. It's usually countered by saying "that oil would get pumped anyway, better us doing it 'cause our oil sector has the smallest CO2 impact per barrel of oil pumped" or something along those lines. A decent argument, but it hinges on a massive "what if".
indothrowaway 8y ago
forcing us on halmahera to not allow clearing for farm land and need to import more food to our island. rely on boats that sometimes dont come.

315 points by ammaristotle 8y ago

> In 2010, Norway pledged to support Indonesia with up to 1 billion USD depending on results. It's easy to sit in a developed western country, buying products from other countries, and then complain about their emissions. I'm glad that we're trying to be responsible. It may not be enough or not the right way to do it (some thoughts on this?), but it's something.

StreamBright 8y ago
This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?
  - XorNot 8y ago
    It's less beef, specifically. On a practical level cutting out meat entirely can actually increase emissions because you can raise farm animals off of human inedible parts of plants like stems and other marginal food (i.e. parts we don't get any nutrition from). Beef however is one of the worst conversion methods in this regard, but animals like chickens and goats are quite efficient.
    - est31 8y ago
      Insects are most efficient btw, but there are cultural reservations about them in the west.
      - zcid 8y ago
        I looked into raising crickets, but most of my research suggested that they aren't any more efficient than chickens. It seems that a lot of the studies we currently have are poorly done or not transferable to mass production. In addition, the amount of extra work for processing crickets made the project less than optimal at least for a small operation.
      - kibwen 8y ago
        If Silicon Valley can propel nutrient sludge like Soylent into notoriety, then I'm sure it can do the same for cricket nuggets. :P
        renholder 8y ago
        >...like Soylent into notoriety... As long as it isn't green. =]
        benj111 8y ago
        Doesn't require Silicon Valley. Pink slime can now be sold as beef mince in the US. How hard do you think it would be to get powdered cricket labelled as 'protein enhancer' or some such? Plus people will happily eat things with cochineal [1] in it, so I can't see highly processed insect additives being a problem. Won't be called Cricket nuggets though. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal
      - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
        They could grow insects to process into unrecognisable "filler", right?
        int_19h 8y ago
  - hannob 8y ago
    > And buy products from where instead? Buy less products overall. > I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat? The most effective thing is probably less carbon intensive transport (that means first and foremost flying). But less meat (or better no meat) is still among the more impactful things.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
      Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single-occupant cars. The majority of people do not fly multiple times per week. Having said that, I do agree with the main thrust of your comment: consume less.
      - kaybe 8y ago
        They also don't drive several thousand or tens of thousand kilometers in one go once or more a year either in addition to the normal driving, so I'd say that argument is not helpful here.
        TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
        That’s a good point. I wonder how many people are willing to eat less beef vs how many are willing to give in their once a year or less long-haul-flight holiday.
        distances 8y ago
        That's not how it'll work though. Do vegans get more flight allowances? Do people with kids have to forgo meat as well as vacations? Obviously no consumer choice driven solution is going to work. The costs have to be included in the goods and services if we want any actual reduction.
      - lazyjones 8y ago
        > *Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single- http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/footprints-air-travel/ http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/footprints-air-t... seems to disagee. In fact, driving a typical car for one year produces less CO2 than one long-distance flight per passenger.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    Eating less meat is pretty high on the list [1]. But I think that for many people it is easier to buy less crap they don't really need, or to fix things instead of replacing them. Buying used instead of new is also an option. [1] https://www.drawdown.org/solutions https://www.drawdown.org/solutions
  - kaybe 8y ago
    The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)
    - fghtr 8y ago
      Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full.jpg http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...
      - Pelam 8y ago
        Interesting fact, jet powered short haul flights are worse per distance due to the fact that most energy is used in takeoff and landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati... I also read somewhere that propeller based airplanes flying lower in the atmosphere would be better option for short haul flights.
      - kaybe 8y ago
        I wonder what the difference between 'switch electric car to car free' and 'live carfree' is? The effect over time or not using rentals/other people's cars maybe?
        lotsofpulp 8y ago
        Manufacturing and maintaining a vehicle produced pollution itself, so not creating demand for one is less polluting than still creating a demand for a vehicle of any type.
      - peanutz454 8y ago
        I find this difficult to believe! One transatlantic round trip flight is about 60% as bad as living car free? Assuming you do not travel at all - right? But you will travel. You will cycle to work, and you will burn more calories, and you will therefore eat more food, ending up contributing just as much too increasing emissions!
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    China is fastracking to being a developed nation faster than anyone before, and missing out many of the developed world's mistakes. They'll have poisonous air for a shorter time than the US or Europe did. They'll have the least obsolete infrastructure of anyone. Making stuff in China isn't necessarily disastrous. Making huge amounts of overly cheap shite that doesn't last, or do the job properly is especially disastrous as it encourages waste. Shipping huge amounts of stuff around the globe is disastrous. Making stuff in places that don't yet have mature and tight environmental protections is disastrous. (Probably a significant reason it moved there in the first place) I'd pay more for a MBP or another Thinkpad made in Greenock (where IBM used to make them), or anywhere in the EU. I'm in a minority so small it may as well not exist in wanting locally made stuff. For most stuff, I try not to buy at all, but I can rarely choose local any more.
    - empath75 8y ago
      Even if they assembled them elsewhere, most of the parts and raw materials would have to come from China these days.
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        In the early days of Chinese manufacturing they would have been importing most. Suppliers tend to cluster where manufacturers are, and import specialist parts. Of course as you just posted in the other comment, CO2 taxes reflecting the full environmental costs would tend to encourage more clustering, more local production, and generally buying less wastefully. As popular as plague no doubt, but stuff needs to get expensive again. Perhaps better to say "expensive enough".
  - mazsa 8y ago
    FYI: "Feeding cows seaweed cuts 99% of greenhouse gas emissions from their burps, research finds" https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...
    - kasey_junk 8y ago
      But it does hardly anything got the carbon costs of their feed.
      - mazsa 8y ago
        "hardly anything" = 80% of feed crops, foregone absorption of greenhouse gases (i.e. 32% of all of their carbon costs, cf. https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D2913D-11FD-4F76-8E61F6CA3450980D_source.jpg https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D29... )
        chosenbreed37 8y ago
        Is the sourcing of seaweed in sufficient quantities free of cost?
        philipkglass 8y ago
        The active anti-methane compound from seaweed is likely bromoform: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-0830-7 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10811-016-0830-7 It would be a cheap food supplement since the methane inhibition required only about 2% seaweed in cattle food, which in turn implies a bromoform feed content of only about 35 parts per million. Though no doubt some farmers would prefer to be able to say that they add seaweed rather than a particular chemical to their cattle feed.
        mazsa 8y ago
        of course nothing is free but they think it may be feasible: https://www.symbrosiasolutions.com/team https://www.symbrosiasolutions.com/team
- entity345 8y ago
  Totally ineffective and counterproductive. Doing what you suggest would not necessarily have any impact on emissions (as they might just shift to another country) while ensuring that 1.3 billion people remain poor and that their country remains undeveloped. Far better to impose strict requirements on production methods. But if that is more expensive there should also be financial help available to countries that may not afford it.
- samatman 8y ago
  China is the sole producer of certain electronic components, this is not viable at present. Granted if you really really want to reduce your personal emissions, stop using technology from post-1950, maybe buy some land...
  - nabla9 8y ago
    > China is the sole producer of certain electronic components I don't believe this is correct in meaningful sense. Do you have any examples? China assembles many components, but that's not something that can't be moved to elsewhere. Vietnam is already replacing China. Best way to deal with exported CO2 emissions is to put carbon tax on imports and not to try to control where they are manufactured.
    - varjag 8y ago
      Nearly all passives, generic active components, and a bulk of the cheaper processes ICs are being produced in China for a while now. PCBA production is another issue, but much of it happens in China too. Vietnam doesn't seem to be really that different from China in politics, environment or other respects. It is hard to see how moving things from China to Vietnam is an improvement.
      - nabla9 8y ago
        China is not the sole producer in any of these categories and not even the biggest. Japan is still the biggest exporter of passive components.
      - learc83 8y ago
        >It is hard to see how moving things from China to Vietnam is an improvement. It's an improvement in the way that multiple competitors are almost always an improvement. Say the world wants to pressure China to reduce CO2 emissions or release the Uighurs from internment camps, having another producer of certain critical goods weakens their negotiating position. Also Vietnam is a lot more likely to be open to democratic reforms than China is in the foreseeable future. >Nearly all passives Also this is not true.
- kakarot 8y ago
  If our neoliberal globalist government didn't effectively force us to outsource the production of the products we consume with unrestricted labor markets and generally stagnant wages in the face of explosive inflation, maybe we would have that luxury. Poor people have been put in a position where they really don't have a lot of options. Blaming poor Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits.
  - bilbo0s 8y ago
    >Blaming Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits... I'd amend that a bit and say, "Blaming [poor] Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits...". Wealthy westerners and their policy decisions, as you rightly point out, are largely responsible for the current state of affairs vis-à-vis the economy.
    - kakarot 8y ago
      I agree. Edited :)
- DyslexicAtheist 8y ago
  let me fix that for you: if you want to reduce emissions stop consuming
  - empath75 8y ago
    Institute a carbon tax that fully captures the externalities of releasing CO2 in the air and people will be forced to.
    - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
      Institute a carbon tax and it'll vanish into someone's pocket while the manufactured goods still have the same emissions.
      - dontreact 8y ago
        You can have a revenue neutral carbon tax where the funds go back into people’s pockets, but the change in consumption pattern would happen because for example renewable energy would not increase in price.
      - empath75 8y ago
        I imagine they wouldn’t because goods that use significantly less carbon will cost significantly less. I don’t care what you do with the taxes, the point is making sure that goods are priced appropriately.
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Use some of it to subsidise insulation and better standard buildings, cleaner air and power, better railways etc. Fund a UBI. I'm fascinated at downvotes for this suggestion. What's actually wrong with spending part on lower impact infrastructure and part on a replacement for a broken welfare system?
        skosch 8y ago
        Your heart is in the right place, but what you advocate isn't currently palatable to anyone, left or right, on the political spectrum. Instead, push for a fee-and-dividend model – not entirely UBI, but similar in spirit. It's what most economists support, and it has enough bipartisan support [0] that there is actually a bill before Congress now that has a chance of passing. [0] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/climate-solutions-caucus/
- andrepd 8y ago
  People do get that, but waiting for people to spontaneously start doing the right thing is just not a very good strategy. That's why we need a carbon tax. To force people to.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    Always another regressive tax needed as the only way to solve a problem. There are other options that don't so egregiously favor the ones with money.
    - jogjayr 8y ago
      Carbon taxes can be offset with a per-person tax credit. This makes it revenue neutral while ensuring that big consumers pay more taxes. They do it in British Columbia already [1] 1. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-change/planning-and-action/carbon-tax https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-chang...
    - skosch 8y ago
      You make it revenue neutral – look up fee and dividend, the method favoured by most economists. The bottom ~2/3rd of households would, on average, get more money back than the tax would cost them.
      - npongratz 8y ago
        > The bottom ~2/3rd of households would, on average, get more money back than the tax would cost them. Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding: 2/3rds of households would first have to pay up, and then they'll get more money back than they paid in? If that's true, it sounds like it would be instituting needless added complexity, with a layer added for politicians and bureaucrats to take a cut before giving it back.
        dontreact 8y ago
        The value add of the layer in complexity is that the costs of some goods but not others would go up. This would make buying and investing in renewables more favorable economically.
- tomp 8y ago
  That’s why I oppose free trade. We need a legislative solution that would ban (or tax highly) products from countries/companies that skim environmental / employment standards...
  - bwb 8y ago
    I like that, call it a fix for the problem of the common good. About time we recognize the entire planet is our home and if someone trashes part x it eventually spreads to part y.
  - rypskar 8y ago
    Who should set the rules? If you should follow national rules in importing country, would not this mean that most European countries would have to ban products from USA?
    - tomp 8y ago
      Well, yeah, that's the idea. If Europeans want to maintain some standards, it doesn't make sense that companies can simply relocate abroad to escape enforcement. On the other hand, if a company would want to sell to EU, it would simply certify/prove that its supply chain follows the standards!
      - rypskar 8y ago
        Since hn don't show who upvote you, I'll add a small comment that I hope EU and others would dare to do more with this than they do now
- simonbyrne 8y ago
  Why? China's per capita emissions are less than half of the US.
  - StreamBright 8y ago
    And the volume?
    - isr 8y ago
      How about this? Tax goods from (or with large inputs from) China AND the US. Heavily. Harshly. Punitively. Between them, those 2 are most culpable in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. If you are truly motivated by a genuine desire to address what IS the single most grevious threat, then you ought to agree. Wholeheartedly. If you're just going to harp on about China, and ignore the US as being equally the problem (and if we take history into account, the US is the BIGGEST problem), then there's another word for that motivation. And that word is not "environmentalism"
    - rypskar 8y ago
      By volume don't really make sense, the only way is to count per person. Counting by volume depend on how you decide to put groups together for counting. You would always be able to say that "the others" are larger than the one you are and say that what you do don't matter. But the easiest to change is what you do, not what everyone else do
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  My pragmatic take is that if we keep buying their stuff - and we will - they will soon become rich enough to clean up their environment, just like all rich countries do. If you're familiar with the history of industrialism, all currently clean and rich countries went through a phase of horrible dirtiness as they rose out of awful poverty. Fortunately, China seems to go through the same steps as the west 3-5 times faster than we did. Sometimes, the only way out is through!
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    You think the environment will continue to be relatively hospitable to humans while we go "through" China, then India, then Africa/South America?
    - BurningFrog 8y ago
      China is already halfway through. India isn't too far behind. The rest of the world is comparatively small. So, yeah, I think we have pretty big margins, TBH. Just my personal hunch. I don't ask you to agree.
  - tim333 8y ago
    We're talking CO2 here. The US has not exactly stopped emitting as it got rich.
    - JBReefer 8y ago
      US emissions are radically down though thanks to efficiency and moving from coal to nat gas + renewables. We're down almost 20% from 2000. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-...
- reaperducer 8y ago
  This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products. Help me find a consumer toaster made in the United States. I searched for six months and only found ones made in China. If I want a giant hotel toaster, there is an American option. But nothing sized for a household kitchen. There are lots of people who make efforts to buy domestically. But so much manufacturing has gone to China that for some items there is no alternative.
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    I'm not sure how to say this constructively, but your comment reads as if there are only 2 countries in the world! Why is 'Made in USA' your only alternative to 'Made in China'?
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      It isn't. But as I stated, there were exactly zero choices other than Made in China when I searched. And I did a very thorough search.
      - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
        Dualit Classic. A very expensive toaster that's been made by hand, for ages, in the UK. Repairable too! https://www.dualit.com/products/classic https://www.dualit.com/products/classic
        reaperducer 8y ago
        Ossim. When I live in the UK I'll pick one up. Until then, the point stands: Made in China is all that is available to me.
        oarsinsync 8y ago
        Amazon.com has them in stock
- dawnerd 8y ago
  Unfortunately that's not really an option for most things. And even when you find something thats made "in America" it's usually just assembled here with parts from China.
- phil248 8y ago
  Sure an economic collapse in China would benefit the environment, but so would the economic collapse of the West. There are better solutions that don't involve trading human suffering for environmental protection.
sigfubar 8y ago
How developed can the US be considering that we have destroyed our manufacturing base and cannot even provide clean water and healthcare for our own citizens?
masterblasters 8y ago
This is very bad there is nothing to be gained by reducing emissions. If Carbon level continue to rise, we'll evolve to live on CO2. If you stop carbon emissions you are effectively preventing God's or Nature's job.
SVResponsible 8y ago
Trying to be responsible is the minimum you can ask of any human.
lazyjones 8y ago
People in developed western countries have been buying rainforests to protect the environment for decades: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/24/cantwejustbuyalltherainf https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/24/cantwe... I'm not sure how it's being protected though. OTOH the earth has been getting greener recently: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-globe-greener/article26147272/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-are-making-the-gl... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171641.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100201171641.h... http://www.keepmepostedeu.org/portfolio/growing-forests/ http://www.keepmepostedeu.org/portfolio/growing-forests/
- freeflight 8y ago
  I remember buying a childrens-print magazine, as a kid in the 80s, that had a bit more expensive special issue, but each sold copy was supposedly used to buy a couple of m² of the rainforest. They marketed it in an "own a piece of the rainforest" way and kid me was super stoked about the idea of owning a piece of rainforest, imagining how I would be living there. I think it might have been Yps [0], but I'm not 100% certain. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yps_(comics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yps_(comics)

spacecrew5 8y ago

Indonesia has been doing better with the enviroment in recent years, probably thanks to international pressure and incentives such as this. Anything which maintains Indonesia's biodiversity is good to see.

O_H_E 8y ago

Looks like a great way to incitive developing countries to reduce their emissions. Although when the developing countries' tax payer start complaining, it's going to be hard to defend these expenditures.

codebolt 8y ago
As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.
- richardhod 8y ago
  As a Western developed nation inhabitant, you and indeed most HN readers benefit enormously for your rich lifestyle on past carbon emissions by your predecessors, which those in that country have not benefitted from. This is a good way to incentivise those countries who - quite reasonably - feel it's unfair that they don't get to use up any of that carbon to develop their nation towards a rich modern lifestyles. So, here is one solution.
  - varjag 8y ago
    Norway did not contribute all that much to carbon emissions directly. The electric grid historically been and still is hydro, and the country was never really industrialized in the first place.
    - rerx 8y ago
      Norway's wealth comes from exporting oil and gas. That's not very indirect.
      - maaaats 8y ago
        It's semantics, but isn't that the definition of indirect, but with a clear link?

hannob 8y ago

It's a start, though obviously if we want to be serious about deforestation we need much more of this. A somewhat similar initiative regarding the Yasuni rainforest in Equador unfortunately went nowhere a couple of years ago because rich countries weren't willing enough to pay.

aboutruby 8y ago

Wouldn't that push countries to cut a lot of trees to then have the highest bidder willing to reduce carbon emissions pay a premium?

Gpetrium 8y ago
You raise a valid point, Brazil may be an interesting test-case for the point you have raised. The new government shows strong interest in cutting down the Amazon (at least partially) for the sake of Agribusiness, Cattle & Logging. Now will they use Amazon and the way the world perceives it as a way to exchange concessions? It remains to be seeing.

duopixel 8y ago

When I first moved to Europe I was struck by just how domesticated the land is. I can sleep in the open without being afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders, wolves or bears. Even when land is "wild", the larger mammals will be rabbits, deer, wild goats and such. Excepting natural parks, hunters are the only predators. At least in Spain, a tremendous percentage of land is put at the service of mankind. The dehesas give cork, honey, acorns to feed the pigs, and grass for the cattle. The situation where developing countries need to conserve their land in a natural state in the interest of biodiversity and climate reminds me a game of Civilization where you are no longer allowed to exploit them to your advantage (with good reason!). We need to keep this land intact, but the only way to do it is to make conservation more valuable than exploitation.

pastor_elm 8y ago
Japan has 67% Forest cover. South Korea 63%. Indonesia...46%. Clearing your land for agriculture only benefits a select few. It is not a good way to grow into a first world economy. Bringing up what Europeans did 1000-500 years ago is not a good analogy.
kaybe 8y ago
Don't underestimate the wild pigs though! Actually a great part of European biodiversity depends on the cultivation of the land. The natural state would be forests and swamps. Grazing leads to open lands with a multitude of grasses, other small plants, bushes, hedges and solitary huge trees, which support different insects and birds. In Germany we have a biome type, Heide (seems to correspond to heath [0]), that was created by degrading the land by removing the good topsoil to fertilize fields (as opposed to field rotation which was used in the south), and which is now a valuable habitat for many species. However, much of this also depends on a non-intensive cultivation, where less-than-ideal areas (rocky, too steep, too wet..) are left alone or only used occasionally (eg to cut the hedges). This kind of use is going down, which is ap problem. Another thing that changed my mind in the last few years: Even the Amazon region, which in the West has this aura of untouched wilderness, was recently found to have been heavily populated and changed by humans in the past, eg to make the ground more fertile in some areas. The key is to work with the forest, not against it, and there is so much we can do. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath

itry2develop 8y ago

So stupid.

porpoisely 8y ago

Considering all the money norway got to pay indonesia came from selling oil, this is really nothing more than a billion dollar PR exercise. Not to mention that in a globalized world, the deforestation will ultimately get shifted somewhere else. Just like europe loves to pretend it is lowering emissions when it's just shifting manufacturing to china, norway loves to pretend to be environmenally friendly with its oil money. If europe or norway truly cared about emissions or the environment, they'd end global trade and drilling for oil, but they aren't going to give up their luxurious first world lifestyle are they? Edit: To everyone downvoting, how about this scenario. We give norway $1 billion for them to shut down their oil rigs? Surely norway will sacrifice their economic wealth and prosperity to help the environment right? Or do we only expect that from poor countries?

vegardx 8y ago
The only take-away from this is that Norway should just sit back and relax, no matter what you do, it will be wrong. Less than half of the exports from Norway are oil. It accounts to less than a quarter of revenue. See: https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenues/ https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/economy/governments-revenue...
- porpoisely 8y ago
  No. The take away is that norway isn't doing anything but buying publicity with their little neocolonial effort. They lost nothing by this. They only gained. If norway really cared, they should stop drilling oil immediately and turn over their entire $1 trillion wealth fund over to nuclear and clean energy companies. But they'll never do that because they use their money for their own political self-interests. Nevermind that half of a nation's export or a quarter of a nation's revenue from a single source is a ridiculous amount, the money norway uses to play neocolonist comes from their sovereign wealth fund(s) which come entirely from oil. Also, indonesia ( and ASEANs ) problem is poverty, education and economic development. That $1 billion is nothing in the greater scheme of things. Heck it probably made things worse because deforestation went elsewhere, indonesia's development was slightly stunted and indonesia will probably deforest at a greater rate in the future. Maybe if norway truly cared, they will force netherlands to pay reparations for colonization to indonesia and hand over the assets of the largest oil company in the world ( royal dutch shell ) to indonesia so that indonesia could develop faster. The dutch got rich stealing oil from indonesia. Maybe return some of that back? Or buying $1 billion in advertising for self-congratulatory purposes while making things worse is better. What has fundamentally changed? Nothing. It's like a billionaire tossing a homeless man $1 and being celebrated for their charity. Especially so if the billionaire caused a financial crisis that cause the guy to lose his job, home and become homeless in the first place. I'm sure the indonesians living in poverty are ecstatic that wealthy norwegians are using their oil money to toss them some crumbs.

Pxtl 8y ago

Good on Norway for living up to their promises. There are a lot of places I'd expect to welch on this kind of deal.

Proven 8y ago

Complete insanity! Since when is it okay to steal money from Norway's taxpayers who disagree with this nonsense and then send it to one of most corrupt countries in the world?

75dvtwin 8y ago

I am yet to see an example of corruption-free model converting environment impact reduction (or increase) in to monetary credit or (debit). ".. To offset their own carbon emissions, European companies have been overpaying China to incinerate a powerful greenhouse gas known as hfc 23. And in a bizarre twist, those payments have spurred the manufacture of a harmful refrigerant that is being smuggled into the U.S. and used illegally. …" https://e360.yale.edu/features/perverse_co2_payments_send_flood_of_money_to_china https://e360.yale.edu/features/perverse_co2_payments_send_fl...

tim333 8y ago
Still the perfect is the enemy of the good and all that. It's probably better to have a flawed but functional mechanism than nothing. I'll give you that hfc 23 story is bad.

spsrich 8y ago

Norwegian taxpayer funds sent direct to Indonesian politicians Swiss bank accounts. Marvellous !

virtastic 8y ago
yes, bribing corrupt 3rd world politicians to repress their populations and prevent them from engaging in economic development. the height of western virtue.

outside1234 8y ago

How about Norway just stop pumping oil to reduce our carbon footprint?

magicalhippo 8y ago
That's an argument many make here in Norway. It's usually countered by saying "that oil would get pumped anyway, better us doing it 'cause our oil sector has the smallest CO2 impact per barrel of oil pumped" or something along those lines. A decent argument, but it hinges on a massive "what if".

indothrowaway 8y ago

forcing us on halmahera to not allow clearing for farm land and need to import more food to our island. rely on boats that sometimes dont come.