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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

#81
post #2

> In 2010, Norway pledged to support Indonesia with up to 1 billion USD depending on results. It's easy to sit in a developed western country, buying products from other countries, and then complain about their emissions. I'm glad that we're trying to be responsible. It may not be enough or not the right way to do it (some thoughts on this?), but it's something.

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

That’s why I oppose free trade. We need a legislative solution that would ban (or tax highly) products from countries/companies that skim environmental / employment standards...

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

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

let me fix that for you: if you want to reduce emissions stop consuming

Institute a carbon tax that fully captures the externalities of releasing CO2 in the air and people will be forced to.

How would you price those externalities, given that there’s currently no way to offset/capture that CO2?

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

#83
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And buy products from where instead? Buy less products overall. > I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat? The most effective thing is probably less carbon intensive transport (that means first and foremost flying). But less meat (or better no meat) is still among the more impactful things.

Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single-occupant cars. The majority of people do not fly multiple times per week. Having said that, I do agree with the main thrust of your comment: consume less.

Calculating the detrimental costs of air travel is more complex then just fuel burn due to altitude and types of emissions produced: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...

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

#84
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And buy products from where instead? Is everything made in China uniformally disastrous for the environment? I was under the impression the easiest way for people, who live in developed nations, to reduce emissions is to eat less meat?

It's less beef, specifically. On a practical level cutting out meat entirely can actually increase emissions because you can raise farm animals off of human inedible parts of plants like stems and other marginal food (i.e. parts we don't get any nutrition from). Beef however is one of the worst conversion methods in this regard, but animals like chickens and goats are quite efficient.

Composting the waste is more efficient so it would be hard to see a net increase from the elimination of animal production.

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

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> *Airliners get better fuel efficiency per mile per passenger than most single- http://www.greenrationbook.org.uk/resources/footprints-air-t... seems to disagee. In fact, driving a typical car for one year produces less CO2 than one long-distance flight per passenger.

That paper says, multiple times, that flying is about the same, or better, or worse, CO2 emissions per mile than single occupant cars.

Per passenger. Therefore, a single passenger on a single 8000 mile flight produces as much CO2 as an average family car in a year (where I live - 13000 Km/year).

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

#86
post #43

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.

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.

We don’t just need a carbon tax. We need the public to support it unlike the French public.

So we need to redistribute the carbon tax as UBI. So people say “more carbon tax please!” Climate Justice. Contact Andrew Yang who is running for President and tell him his UBI needs to be funded with a carbon tax!

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

#87
post #43

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.

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.

As an economist I fully agree. It's not the solution but the measure that helps consumers in ranking all possible solutions. Why is flying without kerosine tax? Why do we spend a few k€ on electric car subsidies per MT less emitted. A tax would make things like this transparant. All we need is some party with the clout of the EU or US to get this thing going. There is no opting out trading with us and no opting out for local citizens. With 1/4th (?) Of global GDP on board it would be the transformative step in starting towards drawdown. All other measures are doomed to fail without it. You can't invest in anything CO2 related when you can't capture the gains. Make no mistakes: CO2 accounting and taxing will be a massive invitation for corruption, gaming and bad actors. But we don't have another option except heavy handed top down regulation.

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

#88
post #60

When I first moved to Europe I was struck by just how domesticated the land is. I can sleep in the open without being afraid of snakes, scorpions, spiders, wolves or bears. Even when land is "wild", the larger mammals will be rabbits, deer, wild goats and such. Excepting natural parks, hunters are the only predators. At least in Spain, a tremendous percentage of land is put at the service of mankind. The dehesas give…

What I don't understand is why there doesn't seem to be any initiative in Western Europe to reintroduce large fauna like bears and wolves. It is very convenient indeed to hike through the Alps without any fear of bears, but in this context it's almost hypocritical of Europeans to talk about conservation in Africa when their own fauna has been wiped out, without any effort to repopulate it.

> Europeans to talk about conservation in Africa when their own fauna has been wiped out

What has been wiped out? We do have wolves and bears.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Norwegian tax payer I do feel a bit like a schmuck for paying Indonesians not to destroy their own country. For one, what's to stop them from cutting these forests once the payouts stop coming? A better endeavor might be to invest in environmentally sustainable industries in Indonesia.

The Guardian had a really interesting blurb about palm oil[1]. One of the takeaways is that as bad as palm oil is, other plants consume far more resources to produce equivalent amounts of oil. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Soy has already wreaked havoc on the Amazon, and Bolsonaro in all his septic glory is a staunch advocate of destroying as much of the Amazon as he can in pursuit of short term profits. The…

> One of the takeaways is that as bad as palm oil is, other plants consume far more resources to produce equivalent amounts of oil.

Yes people keep saying that. However it is not an argument that should stop the debate. The difference is that palm oil production has a lot of issues due to the location: wildlife like orangutangs is killed, old rainforest is deforested, native people are displaced, and it occurs in very corrupted countries (Malaysia and Indonesia). While for example rapeseed oil production requires more land we don't for example here in Norway have those same issues with production as palm oil.

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

#90
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Institute a carbon tax that fully captures the externalities of releasing CO2 in the air and people will be forced to.

How would you price those externalities, given that there’s currently no way to offset/capture that CO2?

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