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

arstechnica.com

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

#71

Post by AnthonyMouse »

mym1990 wrote: post #70
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…

You really believe that a within a complex restructuring like this, there would not be any opportunity for graft ? Would love to step into whatever fairy tale you're in.

If 100% of the money is evenly distributed to every citizen, there is not a cent left to fund any corruption. Ideally the minimal administrative costs should not even come out of the carbon tax, of which fully one hundred percent should be evenly distributed to every citizen.

Presumably there would be some wrangling about how to measure CO2 emissions in certain harder to objectively measure contexts, but they're still not getting any of the money, they might just sneak in a way to not pay their full share. And we know with low variance how much CO2 is emitted by a unit of motor fuel or natural gas or coal, which represent the bulk of emissions.

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

#72

Post by gustavus »

"Okay," I say. "Carbon credits are a bit like beating someone up on this side of the world and sponsoring one of those poor starving kids on the other side of the world to make up for the fact that you're a complete shit at home."

....

"OK," the PFY says as we leave the building via the service entrance. "All we have to do to be nastiness neutral is to find a couple of people bound and gagged in a skip bin, take them out, give them a couple of wallets, unkick them a few times, unelectrocute them with a cattle prod and say 'clothing hippy on discount percent seventy look oh'."

"On the other side of the world," I add.

- The BOFH

https://www.theregister.com/2008/02/01/bofh_episode_4/

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

#75

Post by yawboakye »

both carbon offset and the business surrounding it (especially carbon sequestration) are mostly for the purpose of virtue signaling. it’s no different from the sunday confessions held mostly in catholic cathedrals, where one can sin all they want during the week and have it all forgiven in a couple minutes talk with a priest. if you can keep current operations as is, reap massive profits, and pay pennies towards carbon removal, which dumb business executive will refuse?

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

#76

Post by twoodfin »

Nifty3929 wrote: post #32
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

I would be happy to support a carbon tax, as long as the proceeds are held off-books and distributed annually to all citizens equally, with no income or other qualification criteria. Basically a carbon funded pure UBI.

What this kind of proposal needs is a name the progressive and moderate left can rally around. Something akin to “living wage”.

Mandating a “living wage” makes some things noticeably more expensive: Burgers, rideshares, lawn care, …

A serious, effective carbon tax will make gas more expensive. Maybe 50 cents/gallon.

If the voting public felt the same way about gas prices as they do about the minimum wage—if you can’t afford it your financial model is immoral—an effective carbon tax would be a political slam dunk.

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

#77

Post by tito »

tejohnso wrote: post #74

Cynical take: The job of the carbon offset is one or more of the following: - Assuage guilt - Virtue signal (personal, political, or corporate) - Profit financially from government incompetence - Profit financially from corporate PR efforts

We absolutely need a working market to meet decarbonization goals for a stable climate. The state of the current market means there's a lot of opportunity for improvement.

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

#78

Post by twoodfin »

transcriptase wrote: post #62
jfim wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A carbon tax just puts a price on carbon emissions. So if the guy bikes to work and doesn't buy gas, he's not paying taxes on carbon emissions, while the CEO in a private jet pays more. If the carbon tax proceeds are redistributed, the guy in the kitchen comes ahead, actually.

Everything in the modern world has the oil/energy needed to create it baked into the price. Implementing a carbon tax that increases that cost along every step of a supply chain increases the price of everything, not just gasoline. See: Price of groceries (and all other CPG) in Canada. People will blame the retailers and lazy headlines about record profits, but if you look at their actual margins, the value of CAD, a…

Yes, and thus it’s highly motivating for every link of the supply chain to figure out how to exploit low- or no-carbon energy sources.

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

#79

Post by wizzwizz4 »

tito wrote: post #77
tejohnso wrote: post #74

Cynical take: The job of the carbon offset is one or more of the following: - Assuage guilt - Virtue signal (personal, political, or corporate) - Profit financially from government incompetence - Profit financially from corporate PR efforts

We absolutely need a working market to meet decarbonization goals for a stable climate. The state of the current market means there's a lot of opportunity for improvement.

Many people say that markets fundamentally can't do that. If you think a market can, could you explain? (If they can, that would by far be the easiest coördination approach: we understand markets quite well.)

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

#80

Post by tito »

rohan_ wrote: post #12

doesn't this just mean they're priced incorrectly? like can't you have different ratings for different carbon credit products - the more accurate ones are priced higher?

I like this framing. That's because it seems like a working carbon market is a must have to hit decarbonization goals. Therefore it's a question not of "if", but "how". And a lot of the current "how" is probably best priced close to zero.

Lots of opportunity here for entrepreneurs.

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