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Europe makes shipping vessels pay for carbon emissions

MBCook 4y ago
Good. We should do the same.
- lastofthemojito 4y ago
  "starting in 2024 all shipping vessels going in and out of Europe will need to buy enough permits to cover 40% of their emissions, by 2026 it’ll be 100%." If we (the US) do the same, presumably we'd need a scheme to split the obligations from the permits, otherwise shipping companies will be subject to double (or more) taxation. Of course any system like this will be gamed - maybe the long-haul cargo ships from China will unload outside of the EU, but close to Europe (Turkey? UK?), re-load the cargo on another ship and pay for the much smaller amount of emissions on that final journey.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It'll be interesting to see how it's gamed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try - you will get things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc but they can be corrected for later. One solution would be to switch the tax to a tariff on goods that can be avoided if you prove reduced carbon travel. So if your goods are from China, you get the 100% whatever it is, but if you can show that they travelled from China on whatever is considered acceptable, it drops to 20% or 0% or similar.
- o_1 4y ago
  Good, yes tax things we need more? Where is this money going? Are we funding research for hydrogen powered freight? 1st world taxation almost always affects the bottom rung of the planet while building endless coffers of money for the wealthy.
youngtaff 4y ago
Saw an article the other day that stated roughly 40% of shipping is moving fossil fuels around the globe, so using less fossil fuels has a double bonus
- thatcherc 4y ago
  That's a big takeaway I got from the book Electrify by Saul Griffith (a really good read). The book only really looks at US carbon emissions, but a substantial chunk of emissions comes from refining and transporting petroleum projects -- these are emissions that occur just to prepare gasoline to be burned! Switching to electric cars (or just fewer cars) has the same double bonus as you mentioned in that there's less tailpipe emissions and less petro processing and transportation emissions as well.
arcticbull 4y ago
For what it's worth, marine shipping is the single most fuel efficient way of moving anything anywhere. A large cargo ship can move a ton of cargo up to 1000 miles on a single gallon of fuel. [1] Second is freight trains, at about 500 miles per gallon per ton. [2] [edit] #3 is freight trucks at about 134 miles per gallon per ton [3] and pulling up the rear is air transport at at somewhere around 1/10th of trains. [1] https://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/EstimatesofTotalFuelConsumption.htm https://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/EstimatesofTo... [2] https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-moving-miles-ahead-on-sustainability/ https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-moving-miles-ahead-... [3] https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-advantage/fuel-efficiency/ https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-advantage/fue...
- acdha 4y ago
  My understanding is that shipping is fuel efficient but not emissions efficient because that hasn't been required by the flag countries popularly used to register vehicles so you're basically seeing things like a half century-old design from an emissions control perspective. Since that industry is so cost sensitive something like this makes sense for closing that loophole.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    I agree, but it seems like they're charging them for carbon, not for other emissions? If you want to cut down on carbon, taxing air freight seems like the way to go. My concern is they're likely to redirect marine cargo to other modes which is going to be worse from a carbon intensity perspective.
    - acdha 4y ago
      Agreed, but I would think this should be a “do both” situation since that'd preserve the status quo keeping air cargo more expensive and tell everyone that they need to make capital investments or change how they work to be less carbon intensive.
    - pipo234 4y ago
ictebres 4y ago
It is beyond me how this snail pace of changing the economy to be more sustainable can be interpreted as break neck speed. What was break neck speed was maybe the corona response, which was a good thing and could be happening on climate front more…
- solarkraft 4y ago
  The german covid response was fast for an inert and badly prepared government apparatus. I was still impressed and they were just about in time, but what had to happen was still known well in advance. Everything that had to happen was known way before the virus was a thing, the button just had to be pressed.
- xfitm3 4y ago
  I couldn't disagree more. The response to corona decimated the economy and many businesses. The first priority for life on this planet is to have a decent quality of life. Not being able to afford food or other essentials is hardly a noble objective.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    > The first priority for life on this planet is to have a decent quality of life. Yes. Unfortunately, you can't have a decent quality of life without a quality environment to live in.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
      What if the downsides of decarbonisation outweigh the supposed benefits? Is this even possible in your list of possible outcomes? We have some experience of central state power steering large parts of the economy for The Greater Good.
      - ako 4y ago
kybernetyk 4y ago
Great. Another nail in the coffin of the economy.
- nxm 4y ago
  Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of everything has gone up once it’s implemented. Meanwhile India and China continue to build many coal fired power plants each year
  - isthispermanent 4y ago
    To be fair though China is doing a lot of work to get to renewables. They are currently the largest producers of solar/nuclear/wind electricity: https://www.maxinomics.com/map/solar-electricity-generation https://www.maxinomics.com/map/solar-electricity-generation
  - jylam 4y ago
    > Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of everything has gone up once it’s implemented People are not a bunch of idiots. Climate change is very real. Using other sources of energy requires investments. It is mandatory. All those are facts, as far as I know. If your only arguments are "it will hurt the economy" and "people won't understand", you didn't take the measure of the problem and are part of it. That's very short-sighted, and tends to prove you don't really know what you are talking about.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    "The other kids are doing bad things, we should do them" Is that your argument? Because someone else is polluting we should?
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Talking of India: Indian coal magnate Gautam Adani goes green > Asia’s richest man, coal magnate Gautam Adani, made his vast fortune betting on coal as an energy hungry India grew swiftly after its economy was liberalized in the 1990s > He's now set his sights on becoming the world's biggest renewable energy player, by 2030, adroitly aligning his investments with the government’s own priorities. > As India grapples with climate change, the Adani Group, whose operations also span ports, power, farming and defense manufacturing, plans to invest $70 billion in solar, wind and other green energy projects over the next decade. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gautam-adani-ap-narendra-modi-adani-group-indian-b2237444.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gautam-adani-ap-narendra-...
s1artibartfast 4y ago
I'm curious how the carbon credits are priced and where the money goes. Is it purely a disincentive or does it somehow work to offset the emissions?
- isthispermanent 4y ago
  It's mostly a disincentive. At least a chunk of the money goes to member countries to help transition away from fossil fuel use. There are a variety of rules and mechanisms to ensure the money that is distributed gets spent that way. How effective those rules end up being in real life I'm unsure. The World Wildlife Fund is one of many publications that's skeptical of the efficacy of how the money is spent: https://www.wwf.eu/?8275441/ETS-revenues-report-2022 https://www.wwf.eu/?8275441/ETS-revenues-report-2022
- o_1 4y ago
  There is no mention of alternative power sources for maritime cargo.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Carbon credits are currently mostly just a tax. The fundamental problem with carbon markets is that there is literally no supply. In a properly functioning carbon market these carbon emitters would be buying units of "tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere". Just paying the cleanup costs of the pollution they are emitting. Very simple. The problem: nobody has any large scale carbon capture projects to buy from. What should be happening is that carbon capture projects should be selling their services on the market and these emitters should be buying them at market prices. This would create a carbon capture economy and encourage people to find more efficient ways to do it, since a more efficient solution would produce a superior product on the marketplace and capture more sales. But all current carbon capture technology is small scale and outrageously expensive so it would crush the fossil fuel industry. But without an incentive like this the carbon capture tech will develop very slowly as it has done over the past 30 years since there is little to no demand for it. The worst part is that even if we did decide to zero out our emissions and take the massive economic hit, it would still not account for the two centuries of CO2 buildup already in the atmosphere.
superchroma 4y ago
Good.
988747 4y ago
Europe seems to be hell-bent on committing suicide, economically. Brits can consider themselves lucky, to abandon this sinking ship just in time :)
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Luckily folks are starting to realize that's not the case. [1] > Centre for European Reform figures show that by the end of last year, the economy was 5% - or £31 billion - smaller than it would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU. [2] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/brits-are-starting-to-think-again-about-brexit-as-the-economy-slides-into-recession.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/brits-are-starting-to-think-... [2] https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-billions-in-lost-trade-and-tax-revenues-research-finds https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-billi...
- FpUser 4y ago
  For whatever reasons including energy prices they're not doing particularly great either.
- spookie 4y ago
  I wonder whose businesses aren't going to be up to snuff, and how much local economies are going to earn from this. Really makes one think if it is indeed suicide...
- Animatronio 4y ago
  Yup, the EU aims to become irrelevant economically, not only politically & militarily. Probably to be a smaller target?
- owisd 4y ago
  The UK replaced the EU-ETS with an identical scheme : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participating-in-the-uk-ets/participating-in-the-uk-ets https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participating-in-...
  - isthispermanent 4y ago
jcampbell1 4y ago
This will increase carbon emissions. Shipping is the slowest, cheapest, least carbon intensive mode of transport per ton. Adding a tax to the greenest available option is as silly as tax on wind turbines.
- owisd 4y ago
  This is part of the EU-ETS which is being rolled out to all sectors so you can’t avoid it by switching to a different mode of transport.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    Well you could dodge the tax by switching to sailing ships or the like, in fact I encourage companies to find ways to dodge those evil government tax men by switching to non-polluting forms of transportation. Stick it to big government!
    - dojomouse 4y ago
      Yup - or higher load factors, or electric drive, or higher efficiency engines, or some synthetic fuel produced in a low emission way… all of which the tax provides a nice incentive for :-) I like the framing ;-) Maybe it could work for climate change deniers: “Tired of THE MAN intruding on your personal freedom to pollute? Regain your independence with solar, electric transport, good insulation, and a low impact diet. Freedommmmm!”
- dojomouse 4y ago
  It’s adding a tax to the fuel type for the category, not the category as a whole. The tax will increase the commercial incentive for cleaner shipping which will reduce emissions. The tax isn’t remotely large enough to result in freight migrating to air. And trucking within the eu is already subject to a carbon tax.
  - jcampbell1 4y ago
    Two effects here: First the substitution effect because the price gap narrows between other modes of transport which are less carbon efficient. Second, effect of switching to more efficient ocean cargo. The latter is quite small because fuel has been about 50% of the cost of ocean freight for a long time. The incentive for carbon efficiency has always existed for ocean freight.
goodpoint 4y ago
Too little too late.
thatwasunusual 4y ago
Maybe relate to a news article from Reuters instead of an obviously biased blog? https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/eu-strikes-deal-make-ships-pay-their-carbon-emissions-2022-11-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/eu-strikes-deal-make-sh...
- isthispermanent 4y ago
  It's linked in the post and the author makes the point at the end that it's too early to determine how this action should be judged... "In a decade Europe is either going to look like a genius on how to get tough things done or it’s going to be an economic madhouse, falling behind other parts of the world."
- themitigating 4y ago
  How is it biased?
cube2222 4y ago
As a European, I'm so happy about this. A system where emitters can ignore the actual cost of their externalities and push them down onto society at large to handle (through taxes) is broken. This should also result in more funding around anything green tech related, when you actually have to pay the full price of the currently-used alternatives. Ideally, there'd be a market with buyers (capturers) and sellers (emitters) (with a negative price, so cash flows from seller to buyer, obviously) for carbon emissions where the price depends on the actual underlying cost of capture, but that will hopefully come in the future, when carbon capture is commercially viable.
- gibolt 4y ago
  Carbon capture is so costly and energy intensive, that this likely won't come close to covering the cost. It is absolutely a step in the right direction, but carbon capture is unlikely to end up commercially viable.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bboygravity 4y ago
    It's also insanely dangerous if it goes wrong.
    - _Microft 4y ago
      Are you thinking of any particular technology? Synthetic fuels don't seem to be more dangerous than fossil fuels for example.
  - svorakang 4y ago
    There are definitely examples of where CCS is commercially viable [1], but implementation is lagging, and the technology is very unlikely to scale to capture the amounts that we are releasing. It would generally make better sense to keep the C in the geosphere than to first pump it up, burn and capture it again. [1] https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/531680 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/531680
hgsgm 4y ago
heywherelogingo 4y ago
Climate of mass destruction.
legitster 4y ago
Cap and trade is an underrated climate policy. It's clearly not as good as a true carbon tax, but it is much more politically palatable (it's ostensibly leveraged on companies, not consumers). Rolling more industries into the cap and trade markets will only make the markets more robust.
- rsj_hn 4y ago
  Government creating thinly traded markets that gatekeep essential services is always a bad idea. It funnels huge fees to wall street and creates opportunities for financial manipulation. It is Clinton-era neoliberal grift. I thought the fiasco of energy de-regulation made people a bit more realistic about inserting Wall Street into the middle of everything, but apparently there are still true believers in market solutions to what are major energy infrastructure issues, not consumer choice issues, or how-do-I-run-a-business-efficiently issues. As always, demand-side engineering to incentivize hard supply side problems only serves to make things more expensive and enrich bad actors. If you don't believe that, then understand that many industries battle with high energy prices and are already doing their best to be more efficient. Your carbon tax is not going to be the difference maker. If you want to shift to a different form of energy, then build a power plant which provides the energy you want and take a power plant that you don't like offline. Do this one plant at a time until all have been changed. Same for shipping -- you don't like existing shipping tech, then create a replacement. Oh, that's too hard? Then why do you think the free market will solve a hard problem you can't? Don't go this roundabout way where you think you are incentivizing end users to pool their money together and build their own privately funded energy breakthrough. By refusing to directly provision the replacement, what the government is doing is washing its hands and shifting the burden of hard R&D onto the private sector, which cannot bear this burden very well. So all it does is make stuff more expensive at a time when we are fighting inflation globally, and Europe is rapidly de-industrializing because of high fossil fuel prices.
  - klabb3 4y ago
    > It funnels huge fees to wall street and creates opportunities for financial manipulation. It is Clinton-era neoliberal grift. I thought the fiasco of energy de-regulation made people a bit more realistic about inserting Wall Street into the middle of everything[...] Not saying you're wrong, but how does Wall Street capitalize from this? It looks more like a government money grab to me (if you want the cynical take), since the implementation is quite literally a tax. That said, totally agree it's also an energy infrastructure problem – that governments have been incredibly stupid and naive with the last couple of decades.
cosmin800 4y ago
We really need those electric ships.
- charles_f 4y ago
  No, we need to manufacture more locally. This creates the incentive for that.
- solotronics 4y ago
  where is all the lithium and rare earth minerals going to come from to electrify all the cargo ships?
badcppdev 4y ago
The article says: "But the breakneck speed at which they’re trying to transition to renewable energy led directly to this year’s natural gas fiasco." I'm pretty sure that Russian invading Ukraine made a big difference to the natural gas situation this year. Am I missing something or is the article talking about something I don't understand?
- isthispermanent 4y ago
  Europe chose to deprioritize building natural gas capacity in the form of LNG ships and ports in favor of wind and solar. This order of priorities made them increasingly dependent on Russia's natural gas coming from two pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2. So as many across the western world predicted, Russia used (and continues to use) that dependency as leverage to get leniency on their actions in Ukraine. Natural gas will continue to be a critical bridge fuel to get to a world that is majority powered by renewables. Impossible to do without it. Europe gambled Russia wouldn't do something like this and they lost. That loss caused the price of European nat gas to spike 2000% at one point and it's still up 800% today.
  - badcppdev 4y ago
    Thank you. You've expressed that really clearly. I feel your explanation is definitely missing from the article. I wish I could say that Russia made a decision that contributed as well but that's like the frog blaming the scorpion.
    - isthispermanent 4y ago
      Thanks and you're quite welcome. I mean, Russia exploited the situation and new it was doing so so you're not wrong.
- svorakang 4y ago
  You are right, the article mostly wrong in my eyes. The article might be referring to Germany's closure of several nuclear plants, which to some extent have been replaced by coal and gas (but perhaps more correctly: extended the life of coal and gas plants, awaiting an ever accelerating renewable rollout).
briandear 4y ago
Let’s ask this question: how much is carbon worth? And can a reduction in carbon be precisely correlated to a reduction in global temperature? If a ship emits slightly less carbon, can that impact be measured? If it can’t be measured, how can it fairly be priced?
Proven 4y ago
ppeetteerr 4y ago
What is the collected tax being used for? It's one thing if the selling of the credits will be used to subsidize clean energy or to reduce the burden of the good purchased by lowering taxes. However, if the money is going towards growing other social programs, it may just make life more expensive for the average European.
- Permit 4y ago
  > or to reduce the burden of the good purchased by lowering taxes Why would you want this? You want prices on shipped goods that emit carbon to be high so the average European will be less likely to buy them and choose cheaper (greener) alternatives. The goal isn’t “punish the company that emits” it’s “punish the individual who chooses to create emissions through their purchases”.
  - ppeetteerr 4y ago
    The goal is to punish companies that pollute not the people who consume the goods. In making polluting goods more expensive, you open up space for competition that uses fewer pollutants to offer similar goods at lower prices.
    - Permit 4y ago
      > In making polluting goods more expensive, you open up space for competition that uses fewer pollutants to offer similar goods at lower prices. I think we’re in agreement. I’d just say that if you make a good more expensive but then immediately reimburse the consumer for that extra expense then you are not really making that good more expensive. A good system should make sure that a polluting good is expensive and that consumers feel that expense.
      - ppeetteerr 4y ago
        Expensive is relative. If there is an alternative good of cheaper price, then the original good is expensive. For instance, if a grocer charges $0.10 per plastic bag to the consumer, but $0 to the consumer for paper bags, the consumer is likely to consume the paper bag. That extra $0.10 can then be used to lower the cost of other things because the company's profits are slightly higher. The rebate to the consumer from those paying for plastic is negligible because it's not perceived to be in direct relation to the immediate purchase (the cheaper cost of the paper bag is, however). What does the consumer do with the extra money? They consume more of the cheaper product which is hopefully more environmentally sustainable.
LatteLazy 4y ago
If there is one thing we've learnt in 40 years of unilateral action, it's that unilateral action doesn't work...
lowkey 4y ago
Shipping vessels but not private jets. Rules for thee, but not for me and my friends.[0] [0] https://bitluxtravel.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-from-fuel-tax/ https://bitluxtravel.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-...
- orf 4y ago
  What’s the relative % of private jet emissions compared to shipping vessels? Could this just be a talking point aimed at causing division?
  - DoingIsLearning 4y ago
    You can see for yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector Shipping is 1.7% of global emissions while aviation 1.9%. The immoral aspect is that jet fuel at the moment is literally tax free pretty much anywhere in the world. Not because of private jets but to prop up airlines from going insolvent. Not every 'fairness' discussion has to be a 'eat the rich' polarization. If we are looking at % of emissions then all of this is a distraction, arguably the best bang for buck is to get energy storage + renewables and reduce energy from coal production. If we are looking at it from a social fairness aspect than jet fuel should absolute be taxed.

Good. We should do the same.

lastofthemojito 4y ago
"starting in 2024 all shipping vessels going in and out of Europe will need to buy enough permits to cover 40% of their emissions, by 2026 it’ll be 100%." If we (the US) do the same, presumably we'd need a scheme to split the obligations from the permits, otherwise shipping companies will be subject to double (or more) taxation. Of course any system like this will be gamed - maybe the long-haul cargo ships from China will unload outside of the EU, but close to Europe (Turkey? UK?), re-load the cargo on another ship and pay for the much smaller amount of emissions on that final journey.
- bombcar 4y ago
  It'll be interesting to see how it's gamed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try - you will get things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1Oq3JLNbc but they can be corrected for later. One solution would be to switch the tax to a tariff on goods that can be avoided if you prove reduced carbon travel. So if your goods are from China, you get the 100% whatever it is, but if you can show that they travelled from China on whatever is considered acceptable, it drops to 20% or 0% or similar.
o_1 4y ago
Good, yes tax things we need more? Where is this money going? Are we funding research for hydrogen powered freight? 1st world taxation almost always affects the bottom rung of the planet while building endless coffers of money for the wealthy.

Saw an article the other day that stated roughly 40% of shipping is moving fossil fuels around the globe, so using less fossil fuels has a double bonus

thatcherc 4y ago
That's a big takeaway I got from the book Electrify by Saul Griffith (a really good read). The book only really looks at US carbon emissions, but a substantial chunk of emissions comes from refining and transporting petroleum projects -- these are emissions that occur just to prepare gasoline to be burned! Switching to electric cars (or just fewer cars) has the same double bonus as you mentioned in that there's less tailpipe emissions and less petro processing and transportation emissions as well.

arcticbull 4y ago

For what it's worth, marine shipping is the single most fuel efficient way of moving anything anywhere. A large cargo ship can move a ton of cargo up to 1000 miles on a single gallon of fuel. [1] Second is freight trains, at about 500 miles per gallon per ton. [2] [edit] #3 is freight trucks at about 134 miles per gallon per ton [3] and pulling up the rear is air transport at at somewhere around 1/10th of trains. [1] https://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/EstimatesofTotalFuelConsumption.htm https://www.extension.iastate.edu/grain/topics/EstimatesofTo... [2] https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-moving-miles-ahead-on-sustainability/ https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-moving-miles-ahead-... [3] https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-advantage/fuel-efficiency/ https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/the-csx-advantage/fue...

acdha 4y ago
My understanding is that shipping is fuel efficient but not emissions efficient because that hasn't been required by the flag countries popularly used to register vehicles so you're basically seeing things like a half century-old design from an emissions control perspective. Since that industry is so cost sensitive something like this makes sense for closing that loophole.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  I agree, but it seems like they're charging them for carbon, not for other emissions? If you want to cut down on carbon, taxing air freight seems like the way to go. My concern is they're likely to redirect marine cargo to other modes which is going to be worse from a carbon intensity perspective.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Agreed, but I would think this should be a “do both” situation since that'd preserve the status quo keeping air cargo more expensive and tell everyone that they need to make capital investments or change how they work to be less carbon intensive.
  - pipo234 4y ago

ictebres 4y ago

It is beyond me how this snail pace of changing the economy to be more sustainable can be interpreted as break neck speed. What was break neck speed was maybe the corona response, which was a good thing and could be happening on climate front more…

solarkraft 4y ago
The german covid response was fast for an inert and badly prepared government apparatus. I was still impressed and they were just about in time, but what had to happen was still known well in advance. Everything that had to happen was known way before the virus was a thing, the button just had to be pressed.
xfitm3 4y ago
I couldn't disagree more. The response to corona decimated the economy and many businesses. The first priority for life on this planet is to have a decent quality of life. Not being able to afford food or other essentials is hardly a noble objective.
- iudqnolq 4y ago
  > The first priority for life on this planet is to have a decent quality of life. Yes. Unfortunately, you can't have a decent quality of life without a quality environment to live in.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MrBuddyCasino 4y ago
    What if the downsides of decarbonisation outweigh the supposed benefits? Is this even possible in your list of possible outcomes? We have some experience of central state power steering large parts of the economy for The Greater Good.
    - ako 4y ago

kybernetyk 4y ago

Great. Another nail in the coffin of the economy.

nxm 4y ago
Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of everything has gone up once it’s implemented. Meanwhile India and China continue to build many coal fired power plants each year
- isthispermanent 4y ago
  To be fair though China is doing a lot of work to get to renewables. They are currently the largest producers of solar/nuclear/wind electricity: https://www.maxinomics.com/map/solar-electricity-generation https://www.maxinomics.com/map/solar-electricity-generation
- jylam 4y ago
  > Everyone praising this will wonder why the cost of everything has gone up once it’s implemented People are not a bunch of idiots. Climate change is very real. Using other sources of energy requires investments. It is mandatory. All those are facts, as far as I know. If your only arguments are "it will hurt the economy" and "people won't understand", you didn't take the measure of the problem and are part of it. That's very short-sighted, and tends to prove you don't really know what you are talking about.
- themitigating 4y ago
  "The other kids are doing bad things, we should do them" Is that your argument? Because someone else is polluting we should?
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Talking of India: Indian coal magnate Gautam Adani goes green > Asia’s richest man, coal magnate Gautam Adani, made his vast fortune betting on coal as an energy hungry India grew swiftly after its economy was liberalized in the 1990s > He's now set his sights on becoming the world's biggest renewable energy player, by 2030, adroitly aligning his investments with the government’s own priorities. > As India grapples with climate change, the Adani Group, whose operations also span ports, power, farming and defense manufacturing, plans to invest $70 billion in solar, wind and other green energy projects over the next decade. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gautam-adani-ap-narendra-modi-adani-group-indian-b2237444.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/gautam-adani-ap-narendra-...

s1artibartfast 4y ago

I'm curious how the carbon credits are priced and where the money goes. Is it purely a disincentive or does it somehow work to offset the emissions?

isthispermanent 4y ago
It's mostly a disincentive. At least a chunk of the money goes to member countries to help transition away from fossil fuel use. There are a variety of rules and mechanisms to ensure the money that is distributed gets spent that way. How effective those rules end up being in real life I'm unsure. The World Wildlife Fund is one of many publications that's skeptical of the efficacy of how the money is spent: https://www.wwf.eu/?8275441/ETS-revenues-report-2022 https://www.wwf.eu/?8275441/ETS-revenues-report-2022
o_1 4y ago
There is no mention of alternative power sources for maritime cargo.
jandrese 4y ago
Carbon credits are currently mostly just a tax. The fundamental problem with carbon markets is that there is literally no supply. In a properly functioning carbon market these carbon emitters would be buying units of "tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere". Just paying the cleanup costs of the pollution they are emitting. Very simple. The problem: nobody has any large scale carbon capture projects to buy from. What should be happening is that carbon capture projects should be selling their services on the market and these emitters should be buying them at market prices. This would create a carbon capture economy and encourage people to find more efficient ways to do it, since a more efficient solution would produce a superior product on the marketplace and capture more sales. But all current carbon capture technology is small scale and outrageously expensive so it would crush the fossil fuel industry. But without an incentive like this the carbon capture tech will develop very slowly as it has done over the past 30 years since there is little to no demand for it. The worst part is that even if we did decide to zero out our emissions and take the massive economic hit, it would still not account for the two centuries of CO2 buildup already in the atmosphere.

superchroma 4y ago

Good.

988747 4y ago

Europe seems to be hell-bent on committing suicide, economically. Brits can consider themselves lucky, to abandon this sinking ship just in time :)

arcticbull 4y ago
Luckily folks are starting to realize that's not the case. [1] > Centre for European Reform figures show that by the end of last year, the economy was 5% - or £31 billion - smaller than it would have been if the UK had stayed in the EU. [2] [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/brits-are-starting-to-think-again-about-brexit-as-the-economy-slides-into-recession.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/23/brits-are-starting-to-think-... [2] https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-billions-in-lost-trade-and-tax-revenues-research-finds https://www.itv.com/news/2022-06-09/brexit-cost-the-uk-billi...
FpUser 4y ago
For whatever reasons including energy prices they're not doing particularly great either.
spookie 4y ago
I wonder whose businesses aren't going to be up to snuff, and how much local economies are going to earn from this. Really makes one think if it is indeed suicide...
Animatronio 4y ago
Yup, the EU aims to become irrelevant economically, not only politically & militarily. Probably to be a smaller target?
owisd 4y ago
The UK replaced the EU-ETS with an identical scheme : https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participating-in-the-uk-ets/participating-in-the-uk-ets https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/participating-in-...
- isthispermanent 4y ago

jcampbell1 4y ago

This will increase carbon emissions. Shipping is the slowest, cheapest, least carbon intensive mode of transport per ton. Adding a tax to the greenest available option is as silly as tax on wind turbines.

owisd 4y ago
This is part of the EU-ETS which is being rolled out to all sectors so you can’t avoid it by switching to a different mode of transport.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Well you could dodge the tax by switching to sailing ships or the like, in fact I encourage companies to find ways to dodge those evil government tax men by switching to non-polluting forms of transportation. Stick it to big government!
  - dojomouse 4y ago
    Yup - or higher load factors, or electric drive, or higher efficiency engines, or some synthetic fuel produced in a low emission way… all of which the tax provides a nice incentive for :-) I like the framing ;-) Maybe it could work for climate change deniers: “Tired of THE MAN intruding on your personal freedom to pollute? Regain your independence with solar, electric transport, good insulation, and a low impact diet. Freedommmmm!”
dojomouse 4y ago
It’s adding a tax to the fuel type for the category, not the category as a whole. The tax will increase the commercial incentive for cleaner shipping which will reduce emissions. The tax isn’t remotely large enough to result in freight migrating to air. And trucking within the eu is already subject to a carbon tax.
- jcampbell1 4y ago
  Two effects here: First the substitution effect because the price gap narrows between other modes of transport which are less carbon efficient. Second, effect of switching to more efficient ocean cargo. The latter is quite small because fuel has been about 50% of the cost of ocean freight for a long time. The incentive for carbon efficiency has always existed for ocean freight.

goodpoint 4y ago

Too little too late.

thatwasunusual 4y ago

Maybe relate to a news article from Reuters instead of an obviously biased blog? https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/eu-strikes-deal-make-ships-pay-their-carbon-emissions-2022-11-30/ https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/eu-strikes-deal-make-sh...

isthispermanent 4y ago
It's linked in the post and the author makes the point at the end that it's too early to determine how this action should be judged... "In a decade Europe is either going to look like a genius on how to get tough things done or it’s going to be an economic madhouse, falling behind other parts of the world."
themitigating 4y ago
How is it biased?

cube2222 4y ago

As a European, I'm so happy about this. A system where emitters can ignore the actual cost of their externalities and push them down onto society at large to handle (through taxes) is broken. This should also result in more funding around anything green tech related, when you actually have to pay the full price of the currently-used alternatives. Ideally, there'd be a market with buyers (capturers) and sellers (emitters) (with a negative price, so cash flows from seller to buyer, obviously) for carbon emissions where the price depends on the actual underlying cost of capture, but that will hopefully come in the future, when carbon capture is commercially viable.

gibolt 4y ago
Carbon capture is so costly and energy intensive, that this likely won't come close to covering the cost. It is absolutely a step in the right direction, but carbon capture is unlikely to end up commercially viable.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bboygravity 4y ago
  It's also insanely dangerous if it goes wrong.
  - _Microft 4y ago
    Are you thinking of any particular technology? Synthetic fuels don't seem to be more dangerous than fossil fuels for example.
- svorakang 4y ago
  There are definitely examples of where CCS is commercially viable [1], but implementation is lagging, and the technology is very unlikely to scale to capture the amounts that we are releasing. It would generally make better sense to keep the C in the geosphere than to first pump it up, burn and capture it again. [1] https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/531680 https://research.chalmers.se/en/publication/531680

hgsgm 4y ago

heywherelogingo 4y ago

Climate of mass destruction.

legitster 4y ago

Cap and trade is an underrated climate policy. It's clearly not as good as a true carbon tax, but it is much more politically palatable (it's ostensibly leveraged on companies, not consumers). Rolling more industries into the cap and trade markets will only make the markets more robust.

rsj_hn 4y ago
Government creating thinly traded markets that gatekeep essential services is always a bad idea. It funnels huge fees to wall street and creates opportunities for financial manipulation. It is Clinton-era neoliberal grift. I thought the fiasco of energy de-regulation made people a bit more realistic about inserting Wall Street into the middle of everything, but apparently there are still true believers in market solutions to what are major energy infrastructure issues, not consumer choice issues, or how-do-I-run-a-business-efficiently issues. As always, demand-side engineering to incentivize hard supply side problems only serves to make things more expensive and enrich bad actors. If you don't believe that, then understand that many industries battle with high energy prices and are already doing their best to be more efficient. Your carbon tax is not going to be the difference maker. If you want to shift to a different form of energy, then build a power plant which provides the energy you want and take a power plant that you don't like offline. Do this one plant at a time until all have been changed. Same for shipping -- you don't like existing shipping tech, then create a replacement. Oh, that's too hard? Then why do you think the free market will solve a hard problem you can't? Don't go this roundabout way where you think you are incentivizing end users to pool their money together and build their own privately funded energy breakthrough. By refusing to directly provision the replacement, what the government is doing is washing its hands and shifting the burden of hard R&D onto the private sector, which cannot bear this burden very well. So all it does is make stuff more expensive at a time when we are fighting inflation globally, and Europe is rapidly de-industrializing because of high fossil fuel prices.
- klabb3 4y ago
  > It funnels huge fees to wall street and creates opportunities for financial manipulation. It is Clinton-era neoliberal grift. I thought the fiasco of energy de-regulation made people a bit more realistic about inserting Wall Street into the middle of everything[...] Not saying you're wrong, but how does Wall Street capitalize from this? It looks more like a government money grab to me (if you want the cynical take), since the implementation is quite literally a tax. That said, totally agree it's also an energy infrastructure problem – that governments have been incredibly stupid and naive with the last couple of decades.

cosmin800 4y ago

We really need those electric ships.

charles_f 4y ago
No, we need to manufacture more locally. This creates the incentive for that.
solotronics 4y ago
where is all the lithium and rare earth minerals going to come from to electrify all the cargo ships?

badcppdev 4y ago

The article says: "But the breakneck speed at which they’re trying to transition to renewable energy led directly to this year’s natural gas fiasco." I'm pretty sure that Russian invading Ukraine made a big difference to the natural gas situation this year. Am I missing something or is the article talking about something I don't understand?

isthispermanent 4y ago
Europe chose to deprioritize building natural gas capacity in the form of LNG ships and ports in favor of wind and solar. This order of priorities made them increasingly dependent on Russia's natural gas coming from two pipelines, Nord Stream 1 and 2. So as many across the western world predicted, Russia used (and continues to use) that dependency as leverage to get leniency on their actions in Ukraine. Natural gas will continue to be a critical bridge fuel to get to a world that is majority powered by renewables. Impossible to do without it. Europe gambled Russia wouldn't do something like this and they lost. That loss caused the price of European nat gas to spike 2000% at one point and it's still up 800% today.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  Thank you. You've expressed that really clearly. I feel your explanation is definitely missing from the article. I wish I could say that Russia made a decision that contributed as well but that's like the frog blaming the scorpion.
  - isthispermanent 4y ago
    Thanks and you're quite welcome. I mean, Russia exploited the situation and new it was doing so so you're not wrong.
svorakang 4y ago
You are right, the article mostly wrong in my eyes. The article might be referring to Germany's closure of several nuclear plants, which to some extent have been replaced by coal and gas (but perhaps more correctly: extended the life of coal and gas plants, awaiting an ever accelerating renewable rollout).

briandear 4y ago

Let’s ask this question: how much is carbon worth? And can a reduction in carbon be precisely correlated to a reduction in global temperature? If a ship emits slightly less carbon, can that impact be measured? If it can’t be measured, how can it fairly be priced?

Proven 4y ago

ppeetteerr 4y ago

What is the collected tax being used for? It's one thing if the selling of the credits will be used to subsidize clean energy or to reduce the burden of the good purchased by lowering taxes. However, if the money is going towards growing other social programs, it may just make life more expensive for the average European.

Permit 4y ago
> or to reduce the burden of the good purchased by lowering taxes Why would you want this? You want prices on shipped goods that emit carbon to be high so the average European will be less likely to buy them and choose cheaper (greener) alternatives. The goal isn’t “punish the company that emits” it’s “punish the individual who chooses to create emissions through their purchases”.
- ppeetteerr 4y ago
  The goal is to punish companies that pollute not the people who consume the goods. In making polluting goods more expensive, you open up space for competition that uses fewer pollutants to offer similar goods at lower prices.
  - Permit 4y ago
    > In making polluting goods more expensive, you open up space for competition that uses fewer pollutants to offer similar goods at lower prices. I think we’re in agreement. I’d just say that if you make a good more expensive but then immediately reimburse the consumer for that extra expense then you are not really making that good more expensive. A good system should make sure that a polluting good is expensive and that consumers feel that expense.
    - ppeetteerr 4y ago
      Expensive is relative. If there is an alternative good of cheaper price, then the original good is expensive. For instance, if a grocer charges $0.10 per plastic bag to the consumer, but $0 to the consumer for paper bags, the consumer is likely to consume the paper bag. That extra $0.10 can then be used to lower the cost of other things because the company's profits are slightly higher. The rebate to the consumer from those paying for plastic is negligible because it's not perceived to be in direct relation to the immediate purchase (the cheaper cost of the paper bag is, however). What does the consumer do with the extra money? They consume more of the cheaper product which is hopefully more environmentally sustainable.

LatteLazy 4y ago

If there is one thing we've learnt in 40 years of unilateral action, it's that unilateral action doesn't work...

lowkey 4y ago

Shipping vessels but not private jets. Rules for thee, but not for me and my friends.[0] [0] https://bitluxtravel.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-from-fuel-tax/ https://bitluxtravel.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-...

orf 4y ago
What’s the relative % of private jet emissions compared to shipping vessels? Could this just be a talking point aimed at causing division?
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  You can see for yourself: https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector Shipping is 1.7% of global emissions while aviation 1.9%. The immoral aspect is that jet fuel at the moment is literally tax free pretty much anywhere in the world. Not because of private jets but to prop up airlines from going insolvent. Not every 'fairness' discussion has to be a 'eat the rich' polarization. If we are looking at % of emissions then all of this is a distraction, arguably the best bang for buck is to get energy storage + renewables and reduce energy from coal production. If we are looking at it from a social fairness aspect than jet fuel should absolute be taxed.