Making America Carbon Neutral Could Cost $1T a Year
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
The word "could" here is carrying all the weight. The report from which that number is derived gives a range of estimates, and the $1T figure is at the extreme high end. The median is $300 billion, the 25th percentile is negative $90 billion (it saves money), the 75th percentile estimate is $730 billion.
Yeah it "could" cost $1T if there is "little to no technology innovation over the next four decades." Or it "could" result in billions worth of savings. Both are supported by the report.
Here is I believe the summary report from which this number was derived [1].
1: http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/US...
https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-rea...
Still, it's hard to imagine the companies that currently receive fossil fuel subsidies would be happy to say "hey, don't give it to us, spend it on preventing the end of civilisation"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies
This is different from your source which estimates US fuel subsidies at over half a trillion
A little reading reveals the source of the discrepancy, according to your article
>The largest contributor to fossil fuel subsidies is the under-pricing of local air pollution, as the impacts of smog and particulate emissions have significant health impacts and are a contributor to early deaths.
so they are looking at the social costs of smog and emissions and including that in the calculations - which I understand some people might argue is a subsidy but it seems a little underhanded for the IMF to call it a subsidy in an economic report because that's getting pretty far from the ordinary use of the word subsidy.
I think we like to imagine that there is all this money floating around in fuel company subsidies that we could redirect to alleviating the economic effects of climate change. And that's the impression that this IMF report creates. And when we look at it this way then we don't have to face the reality that we in the West spend our lives ignoring. The reality that not everyone lives in the comfortable west where an economic downturn is an inconvenience. The reality that we live in a world where people are literally starving to death, and taking on these kinds of enormous economic burdens on a global scale would mean that even more people have to starve to death.
When we pretend that economic effects means the same thing to the 3rd world that it means to us in the west, when we pretend carbon neutrality is just an inconvenience and not life or death: Then we don't have to really struggle with questions like how certain are we that it's human activity that is causing these warnings. We can just say it's indisputable scientific consensus without worrying about who the scientists are and what they are actually saying or whether their continued funding is dependent on the veracity of global warming.
And honestly, this is all beside the point--we can talk until we're blue in the face but who can afford to pay for climate change mitigation, but at the end of the day, someone has to do it, or we're all going to be much, much worse off than we are today, rich and poor.
In practice we only get one planet, and trying to quantify whether taking care of it outweighs the loss of income of just letting the damage happen is not merely wrong, but outright terrifyingly inhuman.
It goes even beyond the Tyler Durden (Fight Club) car recall speech, which I won't talk about for obvious reasons.
Probably true in terms of overall quantity, but in terms of pollution or carbon emitted per watt of energy (or joule, or whatever) produced the 3rd world is probably worse.
Lots of dirty-burning, low-efficiency cook stoves out there running on (unavoidably) low-quality fuel. And lots of smoky, high CO2 emission two stroke engines in use.
Which is not to excuse Western emissions but simply to note that there's problems all over.
It's frankly absurd to me. We really need better metrics.
This is rapidly becoming (if it isn't already) a basic maintenance expenditure.
Fixing the roof of your house doesn't cost money in any meaningful sense other than at the specific moment that one balance decreases and another increases. It maintains the value of the house; you have to do it otherwise it falls in. It's not deadweight expenditure.
Unless you use a net present value calculation that discounts the future into nothingness. Then, sure, ignore it.
There may be occasions where the cost will never be so high as to preclude the allocation. Value the benefit in money (which could simply be justified as being infinite in certain circumstances).
"I feel emotion about this issue, let's allocate all the resources and think no further." Has generally been a very, very bad idea. Money is the only metric we have to compare unlike resources when considering allocation and it makes a lot of sense. It has little to do with our bank balances in such usage. It should have nothing to do with greed and avarice.
If on the other hand you're talking about propaganda war and the misuse of analysis to either act or stall, I have little interest in commenting other than to say such propaganda techniques are evil every single time they are used and especially in the service of "right" the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Thinking properly about "what will happen if we do X" is the best defence we have as a species against just about everything.
I am not making a comment on how well the analysis has been done in the attached article. I note it is possible to do such things very, very poorly.
Saying it will cost $1T a year is just FUD from that perspective. Sure, doing it all will be very expensive, but if doing most of it is a hell of lot less expensive, why scare everyone by covering the 'worst case scenario'?
(We absolutely need to pay for it regardless, but it's still worth knowing these numbers, if only for planning.)
But it's as easy that the people opposed see the opportunity cost - if you spend $1T on this then you're spending -$1T on something else. Imagine if the Republicans proposed spending $1T on the military - why oppose it? It'll create jobs, right?
Is that stated policy of HN that only people on the right can be shitted on?
We all perceive the other side as doing bad things more. That's a cognitive bias. To counteract it, we have to inhibit the impulse to stick it to the other side "equally". Does that make sense?
The bad news is that the EIA projects that the US emissions will remain at the roughly the current levels until 2050.
What can be done? Obviously, more renewables are a potential answer; the EIA already included them in the projection, assuming current laws and government incentives, and reasonable technological advances. If we want more renewables, we probably need a bit more government subsidies, or maybe a bit of help from Musk.
Nuclear is another option. I'm personally very pro-nuclear, but I'm aware of the general reservations, so I'm not holding my breath.
Replacement of coal power plants with natural gas achieves substantial emissions reductions, but this was taken into account by the EIA .
Massive changes in automotive fleet from gas-powered to electric were not projected by the EIA ([4], p. 25: "petroleum remains the dominant fuel used in vehicles throughout the projection period").
But here's the biggest way you can make a difference. Just say "Yes". Yes as in "Yes in my Backyard". Yes as in the opposite of "Not in my Backyard". If more building is allowed in the main metropolitan areas in the US, then tens of millions of people would move from suburbs to the densely populated cities like NYC or SF. Population density means less transportation for lots of goods filling the malls, less construction for streets, better building insulation, more people biking to work or using public transportation, fewer school buses, I can go on and on.
The best part is that this would not involve a sacrifice to the economic growth. This would go hand in hand with increased economic growth. How many startups are not viable in SF because the rent is so damn high?
Who would not benefit? People who expect that buying a house means the right for future capital appreciation without moving a finger. Some would even go as far as characterizing these people as rent extractors.
Oh, and I think we should also desalinate more water and plant more trees.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan#Aims [2] https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/ [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773 [4] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf