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Global carbon markets overcredit cookstove greenhouse gas reductions by 10
- realusername 3y agoThe whole thing is just a game of shifting blame in my opinion anyways. The biggest emitters? The US, China, India, the EU, Russia... And where these projects are without exceptions? Random poor families in countries already not contributing to the problem much.
- ars 3y ago> The biggest emitters? The US, China, India, the EU, Russia That's just a list of the worlds biggest countries. https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/
- realusername 3y agoNo it isn't https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...
- ars 3y agoI guess you didn't bother to look at your own link? Which clearly shows the biggest emitters are NOT that list.
- realusername 3y agoYou should have read more carefully. As an example, Americans emits 36 times more per capita than Congolese do. So no, nothing is even close to be linear here and pretending that it is is nonsense.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- infecto 3y agoI have not verified the list but you are correct. Anecdotal but this kind of green washing happens a lot with richer nations. People rally behind a cause to save the world while doing no real change on their own part.
- realusername 3y agoI think those are modeled after the charity NGOs where you help poor families but the result is weird and a bit insulting when applied to climate change. No, buying cooking stove to Ugandan families won't solve climate change, they aren't part of the problem. Reducing fossil fuel use in the developed world and a few other big polluters will.
- timthelion 3y agoRewarding emissions reductions is a pretty weird perverse incentive. Those who emit the most await the greatest reward. Carbon credits are in general pretty stupid, a carbon tax is what is needed. Sometimes I think we should have only an LVT and a carbon tax. Every year the government would tally up how much it spent and send out bills for land ownership and carbon emissions. There would be no deficits, the goverment would necessarilly collect as much as it spent (with the exception of non payment), and it would eliminate all need for any tax beurocracy and record keeping.
- senectus1 3y agonot saying i disagree with the sentiment. but, how do you count the carbon emissions. That's a huge unsolved issue with the Carbon Tax AND Carbon Credits solutions. Your idea doesn't solve it.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoWell for fossil fuels there is a pretty straightforward calculation for emissions per unit of fuel. You can tax it at the point of sale to the end customer. Are their non fossil fuel carbon emissions that are hard to count?
- timthelion 3y agoI would simply tax the sale of fossil fuels. Sure, there are other major sources of carbon in agriculture, but for every gram of carbon from fossile fuels oil, gas or coal is bought or mined. I would go with the simple thing, I don't think carbon emissions from agricultural tillage need be taxed.
- realusername 3y agoThat's the right answer, the whole problem comes from fossil fuel in the first place and making them more expensive will bubble up emission gains through the economic chain.
- 3y ago
- londons_explore 3y agoI want to see stoves that can burn wet wood, manure, fresh leaves, etc. It is clearly possible to do from a physics standpoint - but the trick is how to do it in a robust, easy to use, and low particulate emissions way. High efficiency stoves also tend to be very hard to get lit - since they only really function when everything is at operating temperature. That problem needs to be solved - perhaps for example by storing gasified fuel from the previous use to start it next time.
- akira2501 3y agoTypes of stoves in this study: Firewood. Charcoal. Ethanol. LPG. Pellets. In countries: Bangladesh. Mexico. Ghana. Nigeria. Kenya. Average home size: 4.2 people.
- yetihehe 3y agoStart with something more flammable than wet wood or with electric lighter. Burning wet wood and fresh leaves - it's more practical to dry them first with leftover heat from chimney. Otherwise they need high temperature.
- londons_explore 3y agoSure. But it turns out that wood ideally takes multiple years to dry, and the vast majority of people don't collect wood from the forest 2 years in advance. (Think about the effective interest rate on your time - you are putting in effort 2 years before seeing the benefits). Instead, they collect wood 1 month before they use it (saving that 'interest'), and live with the fact their stove is a bit smokey. But they are unaware that their smokey stove is giving them lung cancer and making their family sick too. A stove design that could handle wet wood efficiently and without giving out deadly smoke would save a lot of lives and help the environment.
- mattpallissard 3y agoStoves without a catalytic converter can burn wet wood, it's just that most of the heat goes out the chimney until the wood is dry. Also, where the inefficiency comes from. No way around heating water prior to combustion afaik.
- akira2501 3y ago[flagged]
- Voultapher 3y agoYou are being charged with murder, what do you have to say? Well, I went to Janice from accounting last week and gave her money so she promised to not murder anyone for a couple month. So you see, I'm not guilty.
- akira2501 3y agoAnd technically, if my estimates are correct, I have actually _reduced_ the amount of murder that took place this year. You should be paying _me_.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- berkes 3y ago> roughly 2.4 billion people around the world cook with smoky solid fuels or kerosene contributing [...] approximately 2% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. So, a huge project is set up to change the lifestyle (food preparation) of almost a third of the world population. To remove at most 2% of greenhouse gas emissions? Is there really no lower hanging fruit? (Or is that low hanging fruit, a cynical me guesses, requiring change to the lifestyles of rich western people?)
- the_other 3y ago> (Or is that low hanging fruit, a cynical me guesses, requiring change to the lifestyles of rich western people?) Likely this, plus the fossil fuel lobby (many of whom are not "western" but are very very rich), plus the leadership in several "developing" countries such as Russia, China and India hedging their energy bets.
- madsbuch 3y ago> Is there really no lower hanging fruit? I would be interested in lower handing fruits that does not for 1/4 of the population to change. If we change consumption / spending habits that will also propagate. Personally, I think politicians are doing a really good job in trying to balance things. Eg. It should be super easy to increase taxes on one-family detached houses and cars. This would almost immediately lead to reduced emissions – so this fruit is almost on the ground. However, the truth is that people don't want to live in apartments and take public transport.
- BlueTemplar 3y agoIt would have been even easier to, for instance, never allow the extraction of bituminous sands and tight oil : cannot burn something that was never extracted ! But as Tony Blair's aide explained so clearly, politicians have nothing to gain in trying to prevent these issues, and everything to lose, because the average voter doesn't give a shit about even the near future.
- madsbuch 3y ago
- NoblePublius 3y agoThis reminds me of 12 years ago at NY Tech Meetup when some whartonites debuted a carbon credit marketplace and the first audience question was “is this a scam?”
- immibis 3y agoThey wouldn't have asked that if it was on a blockchain.
- feverzsj 3y agoClimate change is unavoidable. But people in power will be the least affected, so why should they really care?
- vouaobrasil 3y agoPretty much everyone in the first world will be the least affected compared to those in other places...
- aedon 3y ago[dead]
- realreality 3y agoNobody has mentioned that these projects have another intention/effect: they make poor people more dependent on global supply chains and the monetary system. Instead of using cheap/free, local, sustainably grown wood, or cow dung, they’re required to purchase LPG containers or pellets produced in distant factories (probably from unsustainably harvested wood in other countries). Or they’re dependent on the electric grid, which may be unreliable and expensive. These projects may reduce emissions, and they may improve health outcomes, but they also keep the poor subjugated by the global industrial system. That must be a factor in the programs’ popularity — it’s another way to extract wealth from the poor.
- cocochernel 3y agoI’m a carbon analyst and have worked on the meta-analysis of cookstove methodologies. I find myself in close agreement with Gill-Wiehl et al.’s recommendations, particularly on the following: Gold Standard methodologies are more thorough, with the greatest credibility in a metered approach. Only advanced ICS and fuel switch technologies have material health benefits, although regional and cultural suitability is key (electric cookers don’t make sense in remote regions where energy infrastructure is usually limited). fNRB is frequently over-estimated, but the latest MoFuSS model values are set at the national level, and correcting the data inputs to be locally specific may improve the accuracy of the results. (I discuss these topics in depth in an article posted by Abatable last November: https://www.abatable.com/blog/which-methodologies-will-help-cookstoves-thrive https://www.abatable.com/blog/which-methodologies-will-help-...) Nevertheless, the stark reality remains: four million people die every year from illnesses associated with smoke from cooking. The need to transition towards better living conditions cannot be ignored, nor can the impact of carbon finance today, which has already driven millions of households toward cleaner practices. I hope this study represents a turning point for the cookstove sector, helping to sift out the biased methodologies and over-crediting techniques which have brought its reputation into dispute. I have confidence that the development of more robust methodologies (including the works of 4C led by the Clean Cooking Alliance) and quality indicators such as the CCPs, will ensure the longevity of these projects.