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Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

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Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#111
post #28
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

Reference: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full...

Interesting fact, jet powered short haul flights are worse per distance due to the fact that most energy is used in takeoff and landing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...

I also read somewhere that propeller based airplanes flying lower in the atmosphere would be better option for short haul flights.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#112
post #94
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of existing methods that become economically viable if CO2 is priced properly.

I'm not interested in economic viability, but energy viability. Given that we get most of our energy by creating CO2, it doesn't make sense to use some of that energy to remove some of that CO2. The only option is rapid expansion of nuclear and/or solar, but at latter will take a while and the former isn't very popular.

> it doesn't make sense to use some of that energy to remove some of that CO2.

Of course it does, if the price of CO2 is high enough. If I can capture 1.1 unit of CO2 per unit of CO2 released and it still makes me money, I'll use any energy available. This could happen if e.g. the government subsidizes carbon capture credits or simply if an efficient enough process exists.

On top of that, if the price is high enough it would be viable to build renewable energy solely for powering carbon capture.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#113
post #97
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.)

>> The worst culprit for many people I know is flying. You can eat a lot of meat for the emissions of just one long-haul flight. (Which is sad because flying is great.) And yet the total CO2 contribution of the world-wide aviation industry is 'only' 2%. Based on that chart I would say having (more) children is by far the worst culprit. By now I'm really 100% convinced that the only way to save the earth is if everyon…

> I'm 100% serious about this, and it makes me sad and angry nobody is actually really talking about this.

Well in some parts of the world people are already having less children. Even in Africa and Asia the birth rates are going down as people (women in particular) receive higher levels of education. So much so that in a few European nations the governments are actively encouraging couples to have more children. The most recent one I heard of is Hungary. I think the same is happening in some of the Scandinavian countries. In the far east (Korea if I'm not mistaken) there are even university courses on dating. In some of these places (Hungary in particular) the preferred approach is increase the birth rate as opposed to encouraging immigration to the country.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#114
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does hardly anything got the carbon costs of their feed.

"hardly anything" = 80% of feed crops, foregone absorption of greenhouse gases (i.e. 32% of all of their carbon costs, cf. https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/54D29... )

Is the sourcing of seaweed in sufficient quantities free of cost?

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what most Westerners do not get about China. If you want to reduce emissions stop buying their products.

If our neoliberal globalist government didn't effectively force us to outsource the production of the products we consume with unrestricted labor markets and generally stagnant wages in the face of explosive inflation, maybe we would have that luxury. Poor people have been put in a position where they really don't have a lot of options. Blaming poor Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending h…

>Blaming Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits...

I'd amend that a bit and say, "Blaming [poor] Westerners is like blaming a child for their parent's bad spending habits...".

Wealthy westerners and their policy decisions, as you rightly point out, are largely responsible for the current state of affairs vis-à-vis the economy.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#116
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do get that, but waiting for people to spontaneously start doing the right thing is just not a very good strategy. That's why we need a carbon tax. To force people to.

And, people don't usually put themselves at an economic disadvantage. If their neighbors are buying cheap goods, they probably will too.

I disagree, with advertising and brand loyalty, often people spend more than they need to on equivalent goods.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#117
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do get that, but waiting for people to spontaneously start doing the right thing is just not a very good strategy. That's why we need a carbon tax. To force people to.

Always another regressive tax needed as the only way to solve a problem. There are other options that don't so egregiously favor the ones with money.

Carbon taxes can be offset with a per-person tax credit. This makes it revenue neutral while ensuring that big consumers pay more taxes. They do it in British Columbia already [1]

1. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-chang...

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use some of it to subsidise insulation and better standard buildings, cleaner air and power, better railways etc. Fund a UBI. I'm fascinated at downvotes for this suggestion. What's actually wrong with spending part on lower impact infrastructure and part on a replacement for a broken welfare system?

What does UBI have to do with carbon emissions?

It offers a way to offset the regressive nature of carbon taxes. Poor people don't have to pay much net carbon tax for heating and gasoline, but rich people with massive houses and heated pools will pay more.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#119
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People do get that, but waiting for people to spontaneously start doing the right thing is just not a very good strategy. That's why we need a carbon tax. To force people to.

Always another regressive tax needed as the only way to solve a problem. There are other options that don't so egregiously favor the ones with money.

You make it revenue neutral ­­– look up fee and dividend, the method favoured by most economists. The bottom ~2/3rd of households would, on average, get more money back than the tax would cost them.

Re: Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing whatsoever. Why must it? Taxes are used to move money from where it is to where it needs to be. The tax would price goods and services relative to their CO2. Hopefully some things like single use plastic, ICE cars, coal power would become impossible or very near so. If you used some of the proceeds to start a UBI, it might pay to replace an ageing and creaking welfare and pension system. UBI might be suitable…

> Nothing whatsoever. Why must it? If the assertion that a carbon (or whatever else) tax is to cover the "cost" of externalities, then the money needs to go to actually addressing those externalities. Otherwise, it's just a lie to make a general tax more palatable. It also runs into the problem that "sin taxes" have, namely that once a government entity has a consistent stream of income from such taxes that it can sp…

If UBI is funded with carbon tax, it's revenue-neutral i.e. the government can't spend it on general expenditures. No perverse incentive. You can also replace "UBI" with "per person tax credit" that's equal to the carbon tax. The point is to make the carbon tax revenue neutral. Real world example: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/climate-chang...
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