Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 233 posts

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#21

Post by wmf »

ethbr1 wrote: post #15
LapsangGuzzler wrote: post #3

> From project implementation until 2020, those 18 projects were expected to generate up to 89 million carbon offsets to be sold in the global carbon market. But researchers estimate that only 5.4 million of the 89 million, or 6.1 percent, would be associated with actual carbon emission reductions. It sounds like a massively fraudulent market with little actual oversight.

Curious about someone in the industry's opinion, but the problem sounds like carbon offsets should actually be treated as carbon offset futures . I.e. the value is determined at the time of delivered carbon offsets, and the instrument's price floats on the market before that time, including relative to how likely / valuable the delivery is If company A buys a carbon offset from entity X, and it becomes increasingly a…

That doesn't really match the way people are using offsets. If you buy offsets for a flight and ten years later you learn that that they were ineffective... what? The least effective offsets having the lowest price isn't a good incentive either.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#22

Post by AnthonyMouse »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17
Explore3003 wrote: post #6

The money going towards carbon offsets would be better spent on lobbying in favor of carbon taxes, and establishing Enhanced Weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations still pay the tax but only individuals get the checks.

It would also be a very informative trial run for a UBI (though in this case the amount would be smaller).

The "problem" with this is strictly politics: a) It would actually work, so the fossil fuel energy companies hate it; b) There is no opportunity for graft because the money is distributed to everyone and not just the politically connected, so there is no special interest lobby trying to make it happen.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#23

Post by [deleted] »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17
Explore3003 wrote: post #6

The money going towards carbon offsets would be better spent on lobbying in favor of carbon taxes, and establishing Enhanced Weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

[deleted]

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#24

Post by cagenut »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17
Explore3003 wrote: post #6

The money going towards carbon offsets would be better spent on lobbying in favor of carbon taxes, and establishing Enhanced Weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

nobodies raking in grant money, and if you're in ethiopia or south sudan or niger then the apocalypse is already here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/figures/IPCC_AR...

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#25

Post by 9dev »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #22
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations…

This is a very interesting idea. Actually, it's also the only solution I can think of that would incentivise people to emit less carbon, using selfishness as a lever to achieve cooperation - similar to capitalism itself.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#26

Post by nine_k »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #22
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations…

This sounds cool.

What would be the cost of administering this tax?

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#27

Post by postmodest »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #17
Explore3003 wrote: post #6

The money going towards carbon offsets would be better spent on lobbying in favor of carbon taxes, and establishing Enhanced Weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_weathering

> lobbying in favor of carbon taxes This is deeply unpopular with the electorate, and for very good reason. When the only "solution" to "fighting" global warming is to levy more taxes on the middle class, increase food and construction costs, and cripple developing nations' ability to build industry -- when elites fly around the world on private jets (that spew more CO2 in 6 hours than I will create in 10 years), and…

> "researchers" rake in grant money based on promoting apocalyptic levels of fear

This is a bad take. We are currently living in apocalyptic levels of REALITY.

The people saying what you just said, but twenty, thirty, fifty years ago, were speaking out against the warnings that--if we'd acted in them instead of attacking the messenger as you did-- could've kept us from global wildfire and heat domes.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#28

Post by wmf »

nine_k wrote: post #26
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations…

This sounds cool. What would be the cost of administering this tax?

The cost would probably be similar to the COVID stimulus. Maybe they can require the dividend to be distributed using FedNow to drive down the cost somewhat.

Re: Study: Carbon offsets aren’t doing their job, overstate impact

#30

Post by AnthonyMouse »

nine_k wrote: post #26
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right way to do a carbon tax is to refund 100% of the money to the population. Everyone gets a check every month for the entire amount collected, divided by the number of citizens. This way it costs you nothing unless you emit more carbon than the average person, and you can even come out ahead if you emit less. On top of that, it ends up being a net transfer from corporations to individuals, because corporations…

This sounds cool. What would be the cost of administering this tax?

We already collect federal excise tax on fuel. Changing the amount has a trivial cost. We already collect withholding tax from individuals. Changing the amount has a trivial cost (your boss adds money to your paycheck every week instead of removing it if your tax rate is now negative, retirees and people on disability/unemployment have the amount added to their existing social security/benefits check).

There would be a minor one-time cost for the small minority people none of that applies to, to fill out a form specifying where you want the money to be deposited or the check mailed. But the fundamental process of distributing the money would be a transfer of a fixed amount to each citizen with a social security number, which is easily computerized.

Post reply on HN