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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

#91

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#92

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tito wrote: post #87
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with carbon offsets is worse than that. First, there is no real way to tell if someone was going to do something anyway. You have an existing operation which is already cost effective to modernize because the fuel savings exceed the cost, so you were going to do it anyway, but now you get to sell credits even though the modernization would have happened regardless. So you have a significant amount of pree…

I work in the industry [0]. The decarbonization game is extremely tricky. This whole notion of "were they going to do it anyway", how the heck do you build that in. And how the heck does demand happen, who wants to pay for invisible, mostly useless gas? The key question at the root of this is this: do we need to win the decarbonization game? Or can we just set down the game and walk away? To me it looks like we need…

> Not "if", but "how".

Sure, but "how" could be to abandon the concept of credits whatsoever and institute a carbon tax.

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

#93

Post by tito »

emodendroket wrote: post #54

Or perhaps they're doing exactly their job but their job is not actually what it purports to be. It seems a bit like a modern-day version of indulgences.

I appreciate this comment. It's possible they're doing exactly their job but that it's not a job we need done.

The job we need done is rapid decarbonization. So how do we do that?

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

#95

Post by machina_ex_deus »

You know what actually needs an investment? Climate models which are completely shit right now. It's actually preposterous that there are trillions of dollars worth of decisions in ESG and climate credits and government incentives while the science behind this is supported by old fortran code that has terrible quality and can't give reasonable predictions.

We have trillions of dollars chasing predictions of code barely worth a million dollar investment. That's absurd, it's a recipe for disaster.

Instead of useless government beaurocrats shuffling hypothetical CO2, should invest in climate models that aren't patched together by grad students in universities and old as hell code and a few NASA engineers maintaining an untested unreadable and unverifiable monstrosities.

Maybe there's no crisis at all. Maybe it's all doom and gloom, but the certainty that everyone's pretending that science gives is just not reflective of the reality of how climate models look right now. They are absolutely shit and I don't blame them given the resources they have, they did their best, but it's absolutely insane how much money is moving around on predictions coming out of that mess.

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

#97

Post by tito »

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #95

You know what actually needs an investment? Climate models which are completely shit right now. It's actually preposterous that there are trillions of dollars worth of decisions in ESG and climate credits and government incentives while the science behind this is supported by old fortran code that has terrible quality and can't give reasonable predictions. We have trillions of dollars chasing predictions of code bare…

Say more about this! Let's say you had $100B to build better climate models over the next 5 years. Where would you spend it?

My general sense is the models are good enough to tell us that a) things are headed in the wrong direction and b) we're really far off from a solution. Generally in agreement with you but I haven't researched deeply about what's needed on more modeling and how to prioritize.

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

#98

Post by tito »

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.

I think that's an acceptable conclusion. So then, what's next? We need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Current solutions aren't working great, so how do we do it?

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

#99

Post by tito »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #92
tito wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the industry [0]. The decarbonization game is extremely tricky. This whole notion of "were they going to do it anyway", how the heck do you build that in. And how the heck does demand happen, who wants to pay for invisible, mostly useless gas? The key question at the root of this is this: do we need to win the decarbonization game? Or can we just set down the game and walk away? To me it looks like we need…

> Not "if", but "how". Sure, but "how" could be to abandon the concept of credits whatsoever and institute a carbon tax.

First off, yes, agree, fixed problem, open on solution, "how" could be anything, including doing a funny dance that inspires every person on the planet to just stop emitting so much.

Hmm, say more about this. I said this to another commenter, I'm pretty sure all a carbon tax does is solve for the "demand" side of the equation. Fundamentally you would still need an accounting system for carbon, thus carbon credits of different sorts. Or am I missing something?

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

#100

Post by PakG1 »

tito wrote: post #87
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with carbon offsets is worse than that. First, there is no real way to tell if someone was going to do something anyway. You have an existing operation which is already cost effective to modernize because the fuel savings exceed the cost, so you were going to do it anyway, but now you get to sell credits even though the modernization would have happened regardless. So you have a significant amount of pree…

I work in the industry [0]. The decarbonization game is extremely tricky. This whole notion of "were they going to do it anyway", how the heck do you build that in. And how the heck does demand happen, who wants to pay for invisible, mostly useless gas? The key question at the root of this is this: do we need to win the decarbonization game? Or can we just set down the game and walk away? To me it looks like we need…

GP was speaking about the problems with carbon offsets today. You're talking about the need to decarbonize without acknowledging or addressing the points that GP made. Most are not stupid enough to say that we should set down "the game" of decarbonization and walk away. Many intelligent people are saying that carbon credits don't seem to be working to date as part of "the game". Rather than point out the obvious of how important carbon decarbonization is, it would be better to discuss what GP gets wrong about carbon credits or offer an alternative solution.

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"Having a physically healthy body is important, you should take your nutrition and exercise seriously."

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