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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

#211

Post by Veedrac »

pkphilip wrote: post #185
SamBam wrote: post #168

If you had $5000 that you wanted to use to fight climate change, and you wanted to have it have a bigger multiplying effect than your own personal consumption (install heat pumps, get electric car, etc.), where would you put that, given that most carbon credits seem to be scams? That is, what's the least-scammy carbon credit, and/or place of concrete change? Places I donate to, but wonder how much the effect of each…

Buy some land in a cheap rural place and fill it with fruit trees and contribute that towards the community each year. That will sequester far more carbon and help the environment more than contributing funds towards these sorts of programmes - and you will likely build up some immovable assets over time.

This makes a lot less sense as an impact strategy than buying solar.

I'm not saying solar is optimized, versus say competent lobbying or something smarter, but at least it directly addresses long term climate issues and has a clear causal effect not just on personal consumption but unit price also (and thus others' future energy purchases as consequence).

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

#212

Post by cogman10 »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #202
cogman10 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other weakness is you can game it with international trade. Produce a good in a country without the carbon tax, repackage it in a country that doesn't keep good origin manifests, lie about doing that, then send it to your destination on a solar powered boat (or whatever has the lowest carbon footprint). We see the same game being played with slavery and child labor. Pick a favorite brand, add "slavery" and you'll…

Which is why you have to pair carbon taxes with some sort of carbon import tarrif. The EU/EEA (who have high and increasing domestic carbon prices) have now created the legislation to introduce one - though it will be phased in very slowly over the next decade: https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/carbon-border-adjustme...

A boarder tarrif helps, but I'm talking about the situation where a country hides the origin country to skirt the tarrif.

For example, imagine a company manufactured something in Qatar (which has the highest per capita CO2 emissions), then they ship their product to Greenland, which has the lowest emissions per capita. Then they repackage their stuff and upon import to the EU, report that "yup, 100% a product of Greenland". Which will almost certainly have low or no carbon tarrifs.

(Not saying any of these countries would actually participate in such a scheme, just an example).

This sort of wheeling and dealing is how companies skirted US and China tarrifs.

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

#213

Post by IMTDb »

SamBam wrote: post #168

If you had $5000 that you wanted to use to fight climate change, and you wanted to have it have a bigger multiplying effect than your own personal consumption (install heat pumps, get electric car, etc.), where would you put that, given that most carbon credits seem to be scams? That is, what's the least-scammy carbon credit, and/or place of concrete change? Places I donate to, but wonder how much the effect of each…

Any charity/program designed to slow down population growth.

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

#214

Post by jplusequalt »

lmm wrote: post #180
VintageCool wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donate to aspiring Democrats running for state legislatures in blues states with red State Legislatures or split governments. > Back in 2019, [David Roberts] wrote for Vox that there is one weird trick states can use to ensure good climate and energy policy. That trick is: giving Democrats full control of the government. It has worked in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Massachusetts, N…

They passed a law that "commits" them to doing something long after the end of the current legislative term, assuming it somehow avoids being amended or repealed until then. Have they made a concrete difference e.g. measurable reductions in emissions, or is this just feel-good party-politics?

It's better than the republican party removing environmental protections during the Trump administration.

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

#215

Post by jplusequalt »

palata wrote: post #208
Aerroon wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It does not mean going back to how people lived in the Middle Age. It basically does though. The clever technology that allows you to have a smaller carbon energy footprint usually just outsources the cost to somewhere else. There's just no way I can see how people would have anywhere near today's quality of life without the corresponding energy consumption. Number one reason would straight up be political. You're…

First, it is important to realize that it's not a choice, really. Fossil energy is not unlimited. Either we start preparing for that, or it will happen and we will be unprepared (which will be worse). > There's just no way I can see how people would have anywhere near today's quality of life without the corresponding energy consumption. I think that there is a lot we can do without changing the quality of life. First…

I understand where you are coming from, but this will never happen in the US. This is tantamount to political suicide here. We will all sooner die, or there will be war and revolution before the US gives up its individualism.

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

#216

Post by lincon127 »

Well yah, anyone could have told you that. Relying on consumers to change the world through "market forces" is hardly going to work, because "market forces" are dictated by major market players. Not to mention that if these credits are transferrable then the government is essentially subsidizing companies for being polluters under a certain threshold. Meanwhile the companies that can afford a lot of credits buy them up and offset the cost via consumers, thus the pollution is still made, it just becomes more focused. Plus, they can no doubt hide exactly where that money is going, since they have all this capital to invest in these offsets in the first place.

The only way to fix climate change is with real legislation. Not through governments attempting to manipulate the market.

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

#217

Post by SamBam »

imtringued wrote: post #191
SamBam wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if they could actually work then they'd be perfectly valid. Say Carbon-capture were at a point where we could actually say that my paying $100 caused an extra metric ton of CO2 to be extracted from the atmosphere. Then it actually would work to reduce what I can and offset the rest. Carbon is fungible. If I release 100 tons and capture 120 tons, I've done the world a favor. The issue is simply that the Carbon…

>Then it actually would work to reduce what I can and offset the rest. Carbon is fungible. If I release 100 tons and capture 120 tons, I've done the world a favor. Except what if you only offset 30 tons and you produced an additional 80 tons because you thought you offsetted most of your emissions?

Yes, I addressed that in my comment.

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

#218

Post by SamBam »

willcipriano wrote: post #210
VintageCool wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donate to aspiring Democrats running for state legislatures in blues states with red State Legislatures or split governments. > Back in 2019, [David Roberts] wrote for Vox that there is one weird trick states can use to ensure good climate and energy policy. That trick is: giving Democrats full control of the government. It has worked in California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, Massachusetts, N…

> Donate to aspiring Democrats running for state legislatures So they will blow up a natural gas pipeline and cause the largest release of greenhouse gasses in human history? How about so they can fly private and scold poor people for not caring about the environment enough? Would be better off buying the carbon credits.

I'm sorry, are you actually suggesting that the Democratic Party blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline? Or that they fly on private jets more than Republicans?

At the end of the day, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest piece of green legislation ever passed in this country. It's not perfect, but it's better than anyone else in this country has ever done. I don't care if you're still annoyed that Al Gore sounded like a scold, that's at least some heading in the right direction, while the current GOP platform is for defunding all green energy and funding more oil.

The two parties are not the same on this issue.

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

#219

Post by FreshStart »

SamBam wrote: post #168

If you had $5000 that you wanted to use to fight climate change, and you wanted to have it have a bigger multiplying effect than your own personal consumption (install heat pumps, get electric car, etc.), where would you put that, given that most carbon credits seem to be scams? That is, what's the least-scammy carbon credit, and/or place of concrete change? Places I donate to, but wonder how much the effect of each…

How about we pay crypto bounties on attacks on carbon infrastructure when the price gets to low?

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

#220

Post by asu_thomas »

lmm wrote: post #181
asu_thomas wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Of course. 2. A stable climate is a ridiculously hopeless pipe dream in a world dominated by the capitalist mode of production. The anti climate change industry is a fraud by definition.

> 2. A stable climate is a ridiculously hopeless pipe dream in a world dominated by the capitalist mode of production. The anti climate change industry is a fraud by definition. Ok so what are you claiming here? That preventing climate change is impossible so we should give up and pollute as much as we like without worrying about it? Because if your position is that we can't prevent climate change without overthrowin…

Capitalism has only been the dominant mode of production for approximately 2 centuries, and people made all the same excuses for feudalism yet here we are.
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