5 ms·

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 h

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
- Ygg2 4y ago
  Not sure why you got downvoted. Not emitting carbon is always going to be more effective than emitting then capturing carbon. But most of green tech is a load of green washing (https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE warning long video). By most I mean non-nuclear, non hydro-electric. Fact is that battery tech isn't up to task of high capacity highly reusable energy storage.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    It's harder to police not emitting carbon, after all right now I'm not emitting five billion tons a second of carbon. I also lack the ability to emit that much, but that's not a major issue. In general it's hard to pay for someone NOT doing something without it being scammed.
    - Ygg2 4y ago
      Then tax every m3 emitted. Sure it will be passed to consumer but there aren't any good alternatives tbh. Or just don't do anything and pray you aren't destroyed by climate change.
isthispermanent 4y ago
>> 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 These carbon permits (also called EUAs) are tradeable as futures and are highly liquid on the ICE exchange. There are even a bunch of ETFs, KRBN being the biggest and highest volume.
spookie 4y ago
I wonder what else could be done to lessen the consumption of products made possible by continuous violation of human rights. The cheap leather industry comes to mind.
it_citizen 4y ago
I agree. Europe is kicking ass on the climate change front lately. They are definitely not doing enough but when I compare their actions to the actions other super powers, I can appreciate their efforts. Really excited to see how the CBAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mecha...) will pan out.
briandear 4y ago
Could anyone have a claim that reducing carbon is a negative externality for them? For example, warmer temps could benefit farmers in certain regions. Are they compensated by this scheme? Are we assuming that alleged warmer temperatures are bad for everyone? How is that decided?
xil3 4y ago
Right, and who do you think will pay for this new tax? It's definitely not the importers and exporters - it's the end customers, because everything will go up in price. They're not going to absorb those fees. The only ones making money here is the EU governments imposing this.
- l3uwin 4y ago
  good, if true then when they price their wares appropriately accounting for all thebpollution the free market will crush them with cleaner, cheaper, local alternatives or people will just not buy the product. i thought capitalists loved this free market stuff, or is it just the cheap oil from imperialism they love...
- burnished 4y ago
  That’s the point - they have to pay the costs themselves, so if it turns out something isn’t important enough to be shipped at the ‘real price’ (including these externalities) then customers won’t pay for it. Instead of now, where everyone pays for it, and the real price is obfuscated.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  Yes, the customers pay the tax, but the exporters and importers have to factor in the decreased demand (or margin) as the price has increased. And how they invest in the future. And it goes to upstream businesses, if exporter Y has a lower tax basis, then they will pay rates approaching current exporter X.
- it_citizen 4y ago
  Carbon tax supporters often advocates to redistribute the tax revenues equally to all citizen. That's how Canada does it. It still penalizes polluters and raise the prices of the products emitting the most CO2 but it is a blank or positive operation for 80% of the population (and negative for the ~20% richest that are the polluting the most). Look up carbon fee with dividends for more details.
- oliwary 4y ago
  Well, alternatively, everyone else in the world is paying for me to have cheap imported goods, especially the people I poorer countries who will suffer the worst from climate change. It seems fairer that I should bear the cost.
legitster 4y ago
> 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. I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. This announcement is for shipping companies to currently be rolled into the current Cap and Trade policy framework.
mytailorisrich 4y ago
There's no alternative to diesel for shipping vessels at the moment so the only thing this does is increasing prices for EU consumers and businesses. It's like what triggered the Yellow Vests protests in France: a tax on diesel when people have no alternative. It seems that nothing was learnt from that. A constructive approach would be to invest in developing alternatives then you can tax away to hasten change. Article says that Europe will look either like a genius or a madhouse depending how this goes... well, track record isn't too good.
- mqus 4y ago
  It does make local alternatives(without shipping) or shipping over land via rail more competitive.

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
Ygg2 4y ago
Not sure why you got downvoted. Not emitting carbon is always going to be more effective than emitting then capturing carbon. But most of green tech is a load of green washing (https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE https://youtu.be/Zk11vI-7czE warning long video). By most I mean non-nuclear, non hydro-electric. Fact is that battery tech isn't up to task of high capacity highly reusable energy storage.
- bombcar 4y ago
  It's harder to police not emitting carbon, after all right now I'm not emitting five billion tons a second of carbon. I also lack the ability to emit that much, but that's not a major issue. In general it's hard to pay for someone NOT doing something without it being scammed.
  - Ygg2 4y ago
    Then tax every m3 emitted. Sure it will be passed to consumer but there aren't any good alternatives tbh. Or just don't do anything and pray you aren't destroyed by climate change.

isthispermanent 4y ago

>> 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 These carbon permits (also called EUAs) are tradeable as futures and are highly liquid on the ICE exchange. There are even a bunch of ETFs, KRBN being the biggest and highest volume.

spookie 4y ago

I wonder what else could be done to lessen the consumption of products made possible by continuous violation of human rights. The cheap leather industry comes to mind.

it_citizen 4y ago

I agree. Europe is kicking ass on the climate change front lately. They are definitely not doing enough but when I compare their actions to the actions other super powers, I can appreciate their efforts. Really excited to see how the CBAM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mecha...) will pan out.

briandear 4y ago

Could anyone have a claim that reducing carbon is a negative externality for them? For example, warmer temps could benefit farmers in certain regions. Are they compensated by this scheme? Are we assuming that alleged warmer temperatures are bad for everyone? How is that decided?

xil3 4y ago

Right, and who do you think will pay for this new tax? It's definitely not the importers and exporters - it's the end customers, because everything will go up in price. They're not going to absorb those fees. The only ones making money here is the EU governments imposing this.

l3uwin 4y ago
good, if true then when they price their wares appropriately accounting for all thebpollution the free market will crush them with cleaner, cheaper, local alternatives or people will just not buy the product. i thought capitalists loved this free market stuff, or is it just the cheap oil from imperialism they love...
burnished 4y ago
That’s the point - they have to pay the costs themselves, so if it turns out something isn’t important enough to be shipped at the ‘real price’ (including these externalities) then customers won’t pay for it. Instead of now, where everyone pays for it, and the real price is obfuscated.
smileysteve 4y ago
Yes, the customers pay the tax, but the exporters and importers have to factor in the decreased demand (or margin) as the price has increased. And how they invest in the future. And it goes to upstream businesses, if exporter Y has a lower tax basis, then they will pay rates approaching current exporter X.
it_citizen 4y ago
Carbon tax supporters often advocates to redistribute the tax revenues equally to all citizen. That's how Canada does it. It still penalizes polluters and raise the prices of the products emitting the most CO2 but it is a blank or positive operation for 80% of the population (and negative for the ~20% richest that are the polluting the most). Look up carbon fee with dividends for more details.
oliwary 4y ago
Well, alternatively, everyone else in the world is paying for me to have cheap imported goods, especially the people I poorer countries who will suffer the worst from climate change. It seems fairer that I should bear the cost.

legitster 4y ago

> 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. I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic. This announcement is for shipping companies to currently be rolled into the current Cap and Trade policy framework.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

There's no alternative to diesel for shipping vessels at the moment so the only thing this does is increasing prices for EU consumers and businesses. It's like what triggered the Yellow Vests protests in France: a tax on diesel when people have no alternative. It seems that nothing was learnt from that. A constructive approach would be to invest in developing alternatives then you can tax away to hasten change. Article says that Europe will look either like a genius or a madhouse depending how this goes... well, track record isn't too good.

mqus 4y ago
It does make local alternatives(without shipping) or shipping over land via rail more competitive.