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Because all (current) 18 comment are talking about crypto instead of about carbon removal, I'm just going to say: THANK YOU STRIPE! We indeed need a lot more o

by akie 5y ago

Because all (current) 18 comment are talking about crypto instead of about carbon removal, I'm just going to say: THANK YOU STRIPE! We indeed need a lot more options for carbon removal, and directly investing in companies who want to make that happen is a very necessary first step.

TigeriusKirk 5y ago
Indeed. Carbon removal is the only hope for making the climate better in next several generations. Reducing carbon footprints simply is not enough.
- sailingparrot 5y ago
  Removing carbon is also not enough. We absolutely need both.
  - VBprogrammer 5y ago
    Capturing carbon at the point of emission (e.g the exhaust stream from CCGT plants) seems orders of magnitude more important than any attempt to remove atmospheric carbon. In the atmosphere CO2 is at 400 parts per million. That's a lot of irrelevant gasses to move around a process to capture a very dilute component. It's the same reason why people reassuringly pointing to the amount of Thorium or Lithium in the ocean isn't useful.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  Reducing our personal carbon footprint (e.g., everyone becomes a vegan) isn’t enough, but reducing our collective carbon footprint (via making pollution economically infeasible via carbon pricing) is significant. If we can actually remove carbon at scale, that’s great but for now that’s a pipe dream—we should absolutely invest in it, but we shouldn’t pin our hopes on it while we continue polluting.
  - shiftpgdn 5y ago
    Farm runoff (specifically roundup) is one of the greatest dangers humanity faces but absolutely no one is willing to talk about it. The ocean is the largest co2 sink in the world and we’re killing everything that allows that to occur with commercial biocides.
  - whiddershins 5y ago
    How would anyone implement this internationally? Without that, this strategy is pointless. How do you get India, China, all of Africa to stop producing CO2? The US could go net zero and the effect wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop anything.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Cross border carbon tariffs.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      It turns out you aren't the first person to have considered this problem, and the answer is well-understood: border adjustments. Basically, these are tariffs on imports from countries which don't have an adequate price on carbon. If you want to do business with the West (probably 70+% of the global economy), you need to clean up your economy.
      - rsj_hn 5y ago
        > border adjustments. Don't we already have tariffs on China? I am a little hazy as to whether Trump's were repealed or not. IIRC, the political opposition was from all those companies manufacturing there -- e.g. Apple, Tesla, etc. It's certainly something I would support more of, but the problem here is that targeting tariffs to specific countries has shown to be ineffective, as there are global supply chains, so goods are shipped from China to Vietnam to Taiwan to some other place and finally to the U.S. So it's not simple as to say impose a tariff just on Chinese goods coming into America. IIRC, after Trump's China tariffs were announced, Vietnam suddenly became a huge exporter of the most targeted items, and it was pretty clear they were just relabelling items from China as "made in Vietnam". This is covered in this WSJ story: https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-tariffs-on-china-are-being-blunted-by-trade-cheats-11561546806 https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-tariffs-on-china-are-b... Global trade and capital flows are not really bilateral. It is very much a US vs Rest-Of-World, or at best US versus Regions. So one option to reduce cheating might be to segmenting the world into zones: US - Canada US - Latin America (add everything south of the border) US - Europe US - Asia (throw Africa here, due to China/Africa ties) US - Russia/Middle East/North Africa Then apply tariffs just based on the zones, rather than specific countries. Of course I am speculating, but I do know that country-specific tariffs are very, very leaky, and even in this system, there is a lot of incentive for China to pay some nation in North Africa or Latin America to import stuff and put its label on it, then export to the U.S. For a big tariff, it would certainly be worth it. That's why I prefer interventions in the capital account rather than in the current account. The US has much better control over the global dollar system than over the global trade system. > probably 70+% of the global economy US + EU GDP is 36 Trillion, Global Economy is 76 Trillion, so about 40% of Global GDP. But probably US + EU is one party to a good 70% of Global Trade. Not sure for how much longer. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=EU-US-CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/ https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/
newswasboring 5y ago
People are talking about crypto because it feels like one step forward one step back.
jseliger 5y ago
Indeed. There are also some U.S. government efforts in this area, like the "Direct Air Capture Combined With Dedicated Long-Term Carbon Storage, Coupled to Existing Low-Carbon Energy" program: https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/default.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fFedConnect%2f%3fdoc%3dDE-FOA-0002560%26agency%3dDOE&doc=DE-FOA-0002560&agency=DOE https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/default.aspx?ReturnUrl..., but they remain small.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by akie 5y ago

TigeriusKirk 5y ago

Indeed. Carbon removal is the only hope for making the climate better in next several generations. Reducing carbon footprints simply is not enough.

sailingparrot 5y ago
Removing carbon is also not enough. We absolutely need both.
- VBprogrammer 5y ago
  Capturing carbon at the point of emission (e.g the exhaust stream from CCGT plants) seems orders of magnitude more important than any attempt to remove atmospheric carbon. In the atmosphere CO2 is at 400 parts per million. That's a lot of irrelevant gasses to move around a process to capture a very dilute component. It's the same reason why people reassuringly pointing to the amount of Thorium or Lithium in the ocean isn't useful.
throwaway894345 5y ago
Reducing our personal carbon footprint (e.g., everyone becomes a vegan) isn’t enough, but reducing our collective carbon footprint (via making pollution economically infeasible via carbon pricing) is significant. If we can actually remove carbon at scale, that’s great but for now that’s a pipe dream—we should absolutely invest in it, but we shouldn’t pin our hopes on it while we continue polluting.
- shiftpgdn 5y ago
  Farm runoff (specifically roundup) is one of the greatest dangers humanity faces but absolutely no one is willing to talk about it. The ocean is the largest co2 sink in the world and we’re killing everything that allows that to occur with commercial biocides.
- whiddershins 5y ago
  How would anyone implement this internationally? Without that, this strategy is pointless. How do you get India, China, all of Africa to stop producing CO2? The US could go net zero and the effect wouldn’t be nearly enough to stop anything.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Cross border carbon tariffs.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    It turns out you aren't the first person to have considered this problem, and the answer is well-understood: border adjustments. Basically, these are tariffs on imports from countries which don't have an adequate price on carbon. If you want to do business with the West (probably 70+% of the global economy), you need to clean up your economy.
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > border adjustments. Don't we already have tariffs on China? I am a little hazy as to whether Trump's were repealed or not. IIRC, the political opposition was from all those companies manufacturing there -- e.g. Apple, Tesla, etc. It's certainly something I would support more of, but the problem here is that targeting tariffs to specific countries has shown to be ineffective, as there are global supply chains, so goods are shipped from China to Vietnam to Taiwan to some other place and finally to the U.S. So it's not simple as to say impose a tariff just on Chinese goods coming into America. IIRC, after Trump's China tariffs were announced, Vietnam suddenly became a huge exporter of the most targeted items, and it was pretty clear they were just relabelling items from China as "made in Vietnam". This is covered in this WSJ story: https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-tariffs-on-china-are-being-blunted-by-trade-cheats-11561546806 https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-tariffs-on-china-are-b... Global trade and capital flows are not really bilateral. It is very much a US vs Rest-Of-World, or at best US versus Regions. So one option to reduce cheating might be to segmenting the world into zones: US - Canada US - Latin America (add everything south of the border) US - Europe US - Asia (throw Africa here, due to China/Africa ties) US - Russia/Middle East/North Africa Then apply tariffs just based on the zones, rather than specific countries. Of course I am speculating, but I do know that country-specific tariffs are very, very leaky, and even in this system, there is a lot of incentive for China to pay some nation in North Africa or Latin America to import stuff and put its label on it, then export to the U.S. For a big tariff, it would certainly be worth it. That's why I prefer interventions in the capital account rather than in the current account. The US has much better control over the global dollar system than over the global trade system. > probably 70+% of the global economy US + EU GDP is 36 Trillion, Global Economy is 76 Trillion, so about 40% of Global GDP. But probably US + EU is one party to a good 70% of Global Trade. Not sure for how much longer. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?locations=EU-US-CN https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location... https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/ https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/

newswasboring 5y ago

People are talking about crypto because it feels like one step forward one step back.

jseliger 5y ago

Indeed. There are also some U.S. government efforts in this area, like the "Direct Air Capture Combined With Dedicated Long-Term Carbon Storage, Coupled to Existing Low-Carbon Energy" program: https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/default.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fFedConnect%2f%3fdoc%3dDE-FOA-0002560%26agency%3dDOE&doc=DE-FOA-0002560&agency=DOE https://www.fedconnect.net/FedConnect/default.aspx?ReturnUrl..., but they remain small.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]