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The whole idea of crediting someone for 'what they would have emitted' is wrong. There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'. Instead we should s

The whole idea of crediting someone for 'what they would have emitted' is wrong. There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'. Instead we should simply be billing for carbon actually emitted. If you emit less, your bill is smaller.

john61 2y ago
> Instead we should simply be billing for carbon actually emitted. If you emit less, your bill is smaller. Poor people have the same human rights than rich people. Therefore it should not be dependent on money how much a person can emit. There should be a hard limit of allowed CO2 emissions per person.
blitzar 2y ago
> simply be billing for carbon actually emitted Many companies (and induviduals) would cease to be viable going concerns if they had to pay for their emissions. The transition from unlimited free poluting to full pay for emissions requires some smoothing and the credit system seems as reasonable as any. > There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'. Base it on output - energy generators can output X per GWH, steel mills Y per ton of steel, transport Z per passenger / tonne per mile etc. If you can do it cleaner you have excess credits - dirtier and you pay. This is essentially the system we have today (and it is fantastically capitalist in its design).
- lupusreal 2y ago
  What we have is a system where people get paid for counterfactuals; carbon credits awarded for things they didn't do but claim they would have, like getting paid to not cut down a forest. Fraud is easy because investigators cannot be sent to the counterfactual universe to verify the claims.
- Attrecomet 2y ago
  >the credit system seems as reasonable as any. It's fraud, pure and simple. I don't know how such a broken system could be "reasonable" for anything. But hey, at least polluters can lie to their customers and claim "their greenhouse emissions have been offset", so I guess capitalistically, it makes sense.
kristopolous 2y ago
It's just dicking around with a serious problem. The fundamental issue is an accounting trick has allowed people to offload the true costs on to others. This is the same trick but it's for the assets column. The actual impact doesn't change.

john61 2y ago

> Instead we should simply be billing for carbon actually emitted. If you emit less, your bill is smaller. Poor people have the same human rights than rich people. Therefore it should not be dependent on money how much a person can emit. There should be a hard limit of allowed CO2 emissions per person.

blitzar 2y ago

> simply be billing for carbon actually emitted Many companies (and induviduals) would cease to be viable going concerns if they had to pay for their emissions. The transition from unlimited free poluting to full pay for emissions requires some smoothing and the credit system seems as reasonable as any. > There is just no way to prove what you 'would have done'. Base it on output - energy generators can output X per GWH, steel mills Y per ton of steel, transport Z per passenger / tonne per mile etc. If you can do it cleaner you have excess credits - dirtier and you pay. This is essentially the system we have today (and it is fantastically capitalist in its design).

lupusreal 2y ago
What we have is a system where people get paid for counterfactuals; carbon credits awarded for things they didn't do but claim they would have, like getting paid to not cut down a forest. Fraud is easy because investigators cannot be sent to the counterfactual universe to verify the claims.
Attrecomet 2y ago
>the credit system seems as reasonable as any. It's fraud, pure and simple. I don't know how such a broken system could be "reasonable" for anything. But hey, at least polluters can lie to their customers and claim "their greenhouse emissions have been offset", so I guess capitalistically, it makes sense.

kristopolous 2y ago

It's just dicking around with a serious problem. The fundamental issue is an accounting trick has allowed people to offload the true costs on to others. This is the same trick but it's for the assets column. The actual impact doesn't change.