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This might be more palatable: Say you are a developing country. The US comes to you and says we're going to restrict trade until you get your carbon footprint

by fny 6y ago

This might be more palatable: Say you are a developing country. The US comes to you and says we're going to restrict trade until you get your carbon footprint in line. This is, of course, being done for your own good (you're an agricultural nation after all--climate change will scorch your exports!) by countries who have dumped carbon into the atmosphere for centuries while they were industrializing. https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/international-climate-cooperation-might-require-carbon-tariffs/ https://kleinmanenergy.upenn.edu/news-insights/international...

gus_massa 6y ago
1) You close the local steel smelter that use a lot of CO2 and produce the steel you sell to the US. 2) You start a campaign to eliminate agricultural subsidies globally and also make them reforest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#Deforestation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#D... so they must buy your agricultural products at a higher price. 3) They invade you.
mdiesel 6y ago
At the moment, the incentives are all aligned with us keeping the 3rd world as it is for as long as possible. IMO we need to recognise that the rhetoric of it being "our fault" doesn't sell well, right or wrong. We need to change to saying that it's in our interests to help the rest of the world change quickly. Better still would be to make it in everyone's financial interests to do so that incentives are back aligned with the best outcome for the planet. We need to continue the R&D we're doing, and give away the research so that the nations currently industrialising can skip over that step. There are social issues as well, industrialisation of Britain was a major driver behind democratising the country and enabling social mobility, so it's hard to rush that as well.
SCHiM 6y ago
Who cares about the optics of it? We now know it's bad, that type of whataboutism is the most destructive and dumb kind that exists. Serously we should just pay for their solar panels, windfarms and reactors and be done with it.

by fny 6y ago

gus_massa 6y ago

1) You close the local steel smelter that use a lot of CO2 and produce the steel you sell to the US. 2) You start a campaign to eliminate agricultural subsidies globally and also make them reforest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#Deforestation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forests_of_the_United_States#D... so they must buy your agricultural products at a higher price. 3) They invade you.

mdiesel 6y ago

At the moment, the incentives are all aligned with us keeping the 3rd world as it is for as long as possible. IMO we need to recognise that the rhetoric of it being "our fault" doesn't sell well, right or wrong. We need to change to saying that it's in our interests to help the rest of the world change quickly. Better still would be to make it in everyone's financial interests to do so that incentives are back aligned with the best outcome for the planet. We need to continue the R&D we're doing, and give away the research so that the nations currently industrialising can skip over that step. There are social issues as well, industrialisation of Britain was a major driver behind democratising the country and enabling social mobility, so it's hard to rush that as well.

SCHiM 6y ago

Who cares about the optics of it? We now know it's bad, that type of whataboutism is the most destructive and dumb kind that exists. Serously we should just pay for their solar panels, windfarms and reactors and be done with it.