4 ms·
Since the US only accounts for about 15% of global CO2 emission, even if through some political miracle all of this plan came to pass, it wouldn't slow down glo
by lacker 7y ago
Since the US only accounts for about 15% of global CO2 emission, even if through some political miracle all of this plan came to pass, it wouldn't slow down global warming very much.
We need solutions that will actually scale to be adopted by the whole planet. That means we need to make wind and solar cheaper, or possibly figure out how to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Any solution that costs a whole lot of money and involves no technological innovation isn't going to work.
- alexandercrohde 7y ago>> Any solution that costs a whole lot of money and involves no technological innovation isn't going to work. A carbon-fee would put a market incentive for companies to invent technological solutions.
- fooblitzky 7y agoWow this is the first time I've seen this argument used for the USA. "Only" 15% of global emissions - out of 195 countries. It's still the world's second biggest emitter - I think it would slow down global warming a lot if the US cut emissions. Usually this argument is trotted out in Australia, which is responsible for 1% of global emissions.
- johnwalker 7y agoWe need both! In the meantime, I like the idea of ending subsidies for fossil fuels since it incentivizes building a moonshot technology that everyone can adopt, and curbing our reliance on them so that we have time to build better technology.
- jwr 7y agoSee, that's the problem, right there: everybody says the same thing. "We are only responsible for a small part, so let's do nothing". So we do nothing.