5 ms·

The solution is quite simple. Just require every company and person that emits co2 to pay for scrubbing it and let the market solve the problem efficiently. The

The solution is quite simple. Just require every company and person that emits co2 to pay for scrubbing it and let the market solve the problem efficiently. The only issue is getting everybody to agree to clean after themselves which practically guarantees this doesn't get solved until we are about to suffocate.

namibj 7y ago
I agree. Get an international body with 50% +1 voting rules, proportional to people represented (say, 1 for every 5e6 living humans, including minors). Get a carbon certificate system up, where there is exactly 1 way to create certificates: permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. I.e., grow plants, char them, and bury the coal deep enough to convince the international carbon committee that the cover won't erode for some minimum time (something above 1e7 years, I'd suggest), or something as effective. Find a way to sanction local governments that don't enforce the need for carbon certificates when digging up stored carbon/burning down (old?) forests/etc. . I think mutual economic sanctions against the local government by way of a full (Maybe except imports of basic grains and such into the offending area, if the international carbon commission deems them at risk of famine otherwise. Also medicine and medical equipment deemed essential. Possibly with international ground troop supervision/fact-checking in cases where abusing the embargo loophole would be significant, i.e. spare electronics.) trade embargo between the offender and the rest of the world. There might be reasons to use a selective embargo instead, which allows imports of technology for zero/net-negative carbon industry, along with 1:1 export quotas to pay for the imports. Likely coupled by way of 1:1 exchanges of container loads, i.e. export this heap of containers, in exchange for importing this heap of containers with "green" technology/medicine/food, but no money changing hands there. To be fair though, it might actually be possible to found the international carbon commission in a technocratic way, obviously without any way to enforce anything at the start, but a sort of small founding group that serves to organize the first year/first years of meetings, building the physical place, managing funding from the benevolent technocrats, etc.
- kmlx 7y ago
  "Get an international body with 50% +1 voting rules" wrong age? this seems to be the age of splitting, not coming together.
belorn 7y ago
There is so many issues to solve in order to have a carbon tax. Just to pick a few examples: People do not want their electric bill to jump ten (or more) folds just because wind production went down and now the gas turbine is burning, and they definitively do not want brownouts. Industries like steel and other high energy users is particular allergic to variance in power availability and price, and without tariffs it is practically impossible to demand it in a global economy. Food prices would go up as rural living is directly impacted by carbon taxes. It used to be that the largest portion of a persons income went to pay for food. Today it is a rather small portion. Asking people to pay the carbon tax through increased food prices is a very hard proposition, and without tariffs it is practically impossible in a global economy. Then we have urbanization where increased costs to personal transportation means a population that relies more on mass transit systems. That mean in order to keep people from moving to cities we need a significant investment into building out the railway system, which is the opposite what most countries has done in the last 50-80 years. That investment means raised taxes on top of the carbon tax. It also mean a increased strain on the infrastructure inside cities when density will increase while new infrastructure is being built, which mean more taxes. Then we have international trade (air and sea transport) which is governed through international treaties. To be fair this is likely the easiest place to do a carbon tax as it would only effect all imports and exports and operate as a equal tariff for everyone, but getting people to agree to it it is a significant bigger hill than the Paris Agreement.
- davedx 7y ago
  > Industries like steel and other high energy users is particular allergic to variance in power availability and price Kind of. Actually many high energy users like steel industry are often the primary clients of demand-response agreements with their suppliers. If it's in the contract and helps offset their energy costs then some variance isn't necessarily bad for their business.
- lmilcin 7y ago
  I think the most important benefit of co2 tax would be we would be much more conscious about emissions the same it happened to garbage couple decades ago. This is prerequisite for business to include it as a real factor in optimizations. And if you are one of those that do not care you would still have to pay for cleaning after your.self
lozenge 7y ago
"At present there are no proven technologies capable of large-scale air capture of CO2. It has been suggested that, with strong research and development support and industrial scale pilot projects sustained over decades, costs as low as ∼$500/tC may be achievable [226]. Thermodynamic constraints [227] suggest that this cost estimate may be low. An assessment by the American Physical Society [228] argues that the lowest currently achievable cost, using existing approaches, is much greater ($600/tCO2 or $2200/tC)." So that's $600+ for an NY-SF round trip - in decades time. Currently we would have no flights at all.
- lmilcin 7y ago
  Well, this would definitely be phased in slowly. While phasing in, the technological side would be getting better and better as companies providing scrubbing would be building capability and competing to do it cheaply. Also take in mind the problem might be solved in a different way, for example people switching to high speed trains for shorter rides, business meetings conducted remotely or people choosing more local travel destinations or alternative ways to spend free time. The important part is to factor in all costs of products and services into their price, keeping environment clean included.
- cmutel 7y ago
  As far as I understand, current state-of-the-art is between $100-200 per ton CO2 (see https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3). This is from the CO2 capture company Bill Gates has invested in, FWIW.
  - lozenge 7y ago
    Yes, multiply that by about three to get the cost per ton of carbon then add the cost of sequestration - your paper only includes the initial capture.

namibj 7y ago

I agree. Get an international body with 50% +1 voting rules, proportional to people represented (say, 1 for every 5e6 living humans, including minors). Get a carbon certificate system up, where there is exactly 1 way to create certificates: permanently sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. I.e., grow plants, char them, and bury the coal deep enough to convince the international carbon committee that the cover won't erode for some minimum time (something above 1e7 years, I'd suggest), or something as effective. Find a way to sanction local governments that don't enforce the need for carbon certificates when digging up stored carbon/burning down (old?) forests/etc. . I think mutual economic sanctions against the local government by way of a full (Maybe except imports of basic grains and such into the offending area, if the international carbon commission deems them at risk of famine otherwise. Also medicine and medical equipment deemed essential. Possibly with international ground troop supervision/fact-checking in cases where abusing the embargo loophole would be significant, i.e. spare electronics.) trade embargo between the offender and the rest of the world. There might be reasons to use a selective embargo instead, which allows imports of technology for zero/net-negative carbon industry, along with 1:1 export quotas to pay for the imports. Likely coupled by way of 1:1 exchanges of container loads, i.e. export this heap of containers, in exchange for importing this heap of containers with "green" technology/medicine/food, but no money changing hands there. To be fair though, it might actually be possible to found the international carbon commission in a technocratic way, obviously without any way to enforce anything at the start, but a sort of small founding group that serves to organize the first year/first years of meetings, building the physical place, managing funding from the benevolent technocrats, etc.

kmlx 7y ago
"Get an international body with 50% +1 voting rules" wrong age? this seems to be the age of splitting, not coming together.

belorn 7y ago

There is so many issues to solve in order to have a carbon tax. Just to pick a few examples: People do not want their electric bill to jump ten (or more) folds just because wind production went down and now the gas turbine is burning, and they definitively do not want brownouts. Industries like steel and other high energy users is particular allergic to variance in power availability and price, and without tariffs it is practically impossible to demand it in a global economy. Food prices would go up as rural living is directly impacted by carbon taxes. It used to be that the largest portion of a persons income went to pay for food. Today it is a rather small portion. Asking people to pay the carbon tax through increased food prices is a very hard proposition, and without tariffs it is practically impossible in a global economy. Then we have urbanization where increased costs to personal transportation means a population that relies more on mass transit systems. That mean in order to keep people from moving to cities we need a significant investment into building out the railway system, which is the opposite what most countries has done in the last 50-80 years. That investment means raised taxes on top of the carbon tax. It also mean a increased strain on the infrastructure inside cities when density will increase while new infrastructure is being built, which mean more taxes. Then we have international trade (air and sea transport) which is governed through international treaties. To be fair this is likely the easiest place to do a carbon tax as it would only effect all imports and exports and operate as a equal tariff for everyone, but getting people to agree to it it is a significant bigger hill than the Paris Agreement.

davedx 7y ago
> Industries like steel and other high energy users is particular allergic to variance in power availability and price Kind of. Actually many high energy users like steel industry are often the primary clients of demand-response agreements with their suppliers. If it's in the contract and helps offset their energy costs then some variance isn't necessarily bad for their business.
lmilcin 7y ago
I think the most important benefit of co2 tax would be we would be much more conscious about emissions the same it happened to garbage couple decades ago. This is prerequisite for business to include it as a real factor in optimizations. And if you are one of those that do not care you would still have to pay for cleaning after your.self

lozenge 7y ago

"At present there are no proven technologies capable of large-scale air capture of CO2. It has been suggested that, with strong research and development support and industrial scale pilot projects sustained over decades, costs as low as ∼$500/tC may be achievable [226]. Thermodynamic constraints [227] suggest that this cost estimate may be low. An assessment by the American Physical Society [228] argues that the lowest currently achievable cost, using existing approaches, is much greater ($600/tCO2 or $2200/tC)." So that's $600+ for an NY-SF round trip - in decades time. Currently we would have no flights at all.

lmilcin 7y ago
Well, this would definitely be phased in slowly. While phasing in, the technological side would be getting better and better as companies providing scrubbing would be building capability and competing to do it cheaply. Also take in mind the problem might be solved in a different way, for example people switching to high speed trains for shorter rides, business meetings conducted remotely or people choosing more local travel destinations or alternative ways to spend free time. The important part is to factor in all costs of products and services into their price, keeping environment clean included.
cmutel 7y ago
As far as I understand, current state-of-the-art is between $100-200 per ton CO2 (see https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30225-3). This is from the CO2 capture company Bill Gates has invested in, FWIW.
- lozenge 7y ago
  Yes, multiply that by about three to get the cost per ton of carbon then add the cost of sequestration - your paper only includes the initial capture.