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It _is_ a political issue. The technology already exists--courtesy of the scientists/engineers of course. Whether that technology is deployed is a problem of politics.

For example, if the price of fossil fuels reflected its true cost to society--think climate change, extreme weather, stronger storms, droughts, ocean acidification, etc--then fossil fuels would be prohibitively expensive compared to renewable or nuclear energy. This is what a carbon tax is, and it's what many scientists and economists have been pushing for decades now. But they've been fighting a losing battle against the oil and gas lobby, and one party in particular that is wholly captured by them.

In fact, James Hansen, NASA scientist and head of the Goddard Institute, got out of the science to focus specifically on the politics. He urges people to join the Citizens Climate Lobby, which has lobbied for carbon pricing legislation for over a decade now: the Energy Innovation Act has bipartisan support in Congress right now (https://energyinnovationact.org/). Many other scientists are involved in the politics these day as well (Katherine Hayhoe [atmospheric scientist], Michael Mann [climatologist]).

>This is what a carbon tax is, and it's what many scientists and economists have been pushing for decades now. But they've been fighting a losing battle against the oil and gas lobby, and one party in particular that is wholly captured by them.

You missed the forest for the trees. As the OP pointed out, the US going to zero emissions overnight will not even help. US politics will not solve Nigeria's, China's, or India's populations from expanding to modern western consumerism.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Of course we can't instantly solve global carbon emissions. But we can do our (very large) part here in the U.S. By shifting where our dollars go. By moving from carbon to renewable sources, we'll drop the price of renewables, helping small economies afford to do the same.

Progress is virtually always incremental. We need to begin by stopping dragging our feet.

That’s like saying we should try to bail out the boat with spoons because “progress is incremental.” It’s not only pointless, but actively dangerous, because it’s a distraction.

The “Green New Deal” is a great example. A jobs program obviously won’t do anything to seriously address climate change. Worse, it wastes money and political capital on things that could have more utility. If you spent that money on nuclear energy research and gave it away to developing nations, then you could really move the needle.

But is it a distraction? To overuse the analogy, GP is proposing to yes, get most of the crew to spoon, to buy some little extra time while the engineering team is trying to fix the pumps. The alternative is to have the crew drink or pray to deities for the pumps to be blessed and magically start working.

If the development of the developing world is a problem, you can't expect the solution to come from developing world. On our end, like in the example of the ship's crew, most people aren't able to contribute to a proper solution - they lack the necessary skills and opportunities. Unfortunately (in this case), we live in free market democracies, which means there isn't a body that can reallocate huge amount of resources to retraining and retooling towards mitigating climate change. The market doesn't care, so we have to do things the hard way - we have to force our governments to force the market to start allocating resources, so that engineers and scientists and logisticians can deal with the problem directly.

Spoons? The U.S. is responsible for a whopping 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions. China is the only country on the planet that emits more than us, and they have ~4x the population.

This is a problem that has no single, simple solution. If every possible solution is shot down because it doesn't solve ALL the problems at once then we will never succeed.

We need to divide and conquer. The west needs to hold themselves accountable, and then hold stragglers accountable.

> We need to divide and conquer. The west needs to hold themselves accountable, and then hold stragglers accountable.

And then donate some of the tech and resources, too. By virtue of being first, we've cut out the developing nations from the most direct path to improving their living conditions. We do, IMO, have a responsibility to help them leapfrog the "fossil fuel" part of that path.

(Though honestly, we can revisit that point later. First, let's get to zero emissions ourselves.)

Of course it will help. It's progress. Besides that, why won't the solutions which enable the US to go to zero emissions work as well for other countries? Because those countries can't afford those solutions? Well then the rest of us are going to have to figure that out too.

There's a path dependence to everything. Had we started earlier, we would have shaped the curve of possibilities: renewables would be cheaper, storage solutions would have come online earlier, etc. We would have shaped international dialogue and culture around this issue too, with other nations following the US's lead as far as policies and technologies adopted.

Real world example of path dependence: Supreme Court stops recount in FL --> GWB elected --> Pulling out of Kyoto protocols, starting wars --> [...] Trump elected, partially due to government mistrust seeded in GWB era--> even worse climate change policies

But the problem is that the policies are wrong. They start from the premise that what matters is behavioral change, not technological change. We need $100 billion/year of federal money into thorium and battery research, not "green jobs" or Kyoto protocol. We don't need a "New Deal" to avert climate change, we need a Manhattan Project. But I absolutely agree that we needed those things starting 30 years ago.

You didn't address the problem of Nigeria that the OP brought up. How will a carbon tax in the U.S. address the issue of the Nigerian people rightly desiring a better standard of living?

If Nigeria wants to trade with US they'd have to pay carbon tariffs that encourage them to decarbonize their economy.

What if OPEC collects the tax worldwide?

People don't support the concept of taxes even when they can directly see the positive impact the tax payment has on their own lives and on the community.

Addressing climate change is an abstract concept and for most people, like 80% of the population they can't grasp the abstract, so it all feels like a scam, one big flea circus. "No, no, the fleas are there you just can't see them, just trust me."

Unless someone can invent a way to capture and sequester greenhouse gases from the upper atmosphere to the tune of 50.9 gigatonnes per year I really don't see humanity making any progress, slowing growth isn't helping.

To see who's really serious about change, see who publicly admits nuclear power is a necessity.

On the bright side, one US party doesn't own that issue. There are proponents and detractors on both sides.

> The solution to climate change is not governments and politicians and lawyers. It’s engineers. It’s always been engineers.

I like the sentiment, and we're always going to need newer, better tech. Part of it will be engineering, but part of if also has to be pure science, which I suspect won't be profitable enough for the private industry to pursue. Government needs to fund such efforts. I think this applies generally (not just to climate).

Appealing to government isn't just about trying to go from no help to some help. It's also about getting them to stop doing harm. The Guardian claims that the US subsidises the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of $20B each year.

Agree with all those points.

The United States is enormously influential throughout the world. We have the highest per capita emissions. If we make changes, it has ripple effects across the globe. We define what it means to live a wealthy, “middle class” lifestyle. Also, Nigeria and just about the rest of the world is part of the Paris accord, the US is not. China is poised to enact carbon taxes on a significant chunk of global emissions...

We might be left with no choice but to experiment with a technological “hail mary” — but so far, none are very attractive.

Two decades ago we could have solved the problem at a relatively low cost compared to what we’ll pay now, or what we’ll pay if we do nothing. Every year it gets more expensive.

It’s like the old adage, fitting to this discussion: the best time to plant a tree is five years ago. The next best time is today.

> Two decades ago we could have solved the problem at a relatively low cost compared to what we’ll pay now, or what we’ll pay if we do nothing. Every year it gets more expensive.

This is utterly false. Two decades ago we could have solved the problem if economic growth in the rest of the world stopped. (And maybe not even then.) It was never a solution.

A carbon tax is a viable solution. Last year’s Nobel winner in economics believes that even today, if a carbon tax were implemented we would be, paraphrasing, “stunned at how quickly the world would change”. Had we implemented a carbon tax two decades ago, enforced through global trade agreements, we could have started slow and ratcheted up over time.

We need to move beyond the scare tactic that it’s a choice between the economy and solving climate change. We already solved this on a small scale with the ozone layer.

> Two decades ago we could have solved the problem if economic growth in the rest of the world stopped.

So stop the economic growth in the rest of the world to save the climate.

This would have to be forced through war, and even if somehow the developing world agreed to it without being held at gunpoint, it would still cause lots of suffering and death in short-term. Economic growth is not just zeroes on executives' bank accounts; it's food on the tables of regular people.

Instead, IMO we should double-down on clean tech and then give it away for free, or even with subsidies attached, to the developing world. This way they get to develop even faster, while reducing their contribution to climate issues.

I don’t know what to make of your comment. One of the politicians during yesterday’s CNN climate change debate said the following:

"No individual can be expected singlehandedly to solve this problem. It's going to require national action. And by the way -- this is why we invented government. It's for dealing with issues that are too big for each of us to do on our own."

This is a humanity scale problem and government, by way of politicians and lawyers, and yes engineers, is how we deal with humanity scale problems.

Scientists and engineers put us on the moon, but it was government that directed and enabled them to do so.

I think they meant government-directed (mega-)engineering projects will solve this, not individual efforts. When the US wanted to get to the moon, its government created and funded a huge engineering program (Apollo) but the most individuals could do was pay their taxes and support the program—no amount of individual-scale collective action would ever put astronauts on the moon.

The problem is that the (US) government doesn't care about climate changes, so what individual-scale collective action could do is to make them care, in order for that government to start sponsoring engineering mega-projects, which will then have actual impact on the problem.

> Scientists and engineers put us on the moon, but it was government that directed and enabled them to do so.

Rather: the government was arguably the only institution that could spend a sufficient amount of money for this mission. If there had existed another insitution with similar financial backing that was willing to finance such a mission: I doubt that the government would have been necessary.

In the BP World Energy statistical review for 2018, they showed that though renewable energy had fantastic falls in prices, there wasn't enough addition to meet new energy demand, especially in China and India for industry, and for the USA regarding its huge growth in natural gas. They then asked the question, how much faster would renewables need to grow to JUST meet this new energy demand (nevermind decarbonizing existing demand). They found renewables would have to grow over 2X as fast (from 800 TWh up to 1,800 TWh).

Let this sink in: We are literally adding half the renewables we need just to keep the emissions curve flat. We probably need to go 4X faster to bend the curve downwards on emissions.

Can engineers solve that? They are a piece of the puzzle, but their most fundamental innovations will take years to kick in. We need policy, we need individual behavioral changes, we need everything we can get.

According to IPCC projections we need to hit zero emissions worldwide within the next decade to avoid a 2C increase. Can politicians do that?

Of course not, even a totalitarian fascist regime would not be able to force their population to such a large downgrade in their lifestyles to achieve zero total emissions; any government trying to do that would get violently overthrown by their people.

The only conclusion that can be made from these IPCC projections is that we will not avoid a 2C increase because there's no chance that people would be willing to "pay the price" to achieve that.

It actually wouldn't require a large downgrade if nuclear was used.

Switching 100% of electricity production to nuclear would be very hard (though maaaybe possible) and very expensive to do within a decade (the mean time to construct a reactor is 7.5 years, so we'd have to launch immense construction projects right now), but that's not a solution that brings you even close to zero emissions. Electricity is just a small part (roughly 25%) of them.

To get close to zero emissions you'd also need to:

1) replace or remove all non-electric vehicles worldwide. That third world farmer with a thirty year old tractor who can't possibly afford to replace it with anything, much less with something new? That twenty year old pickup truck for a small storeowner? All those vehicles would have to stop being used. They would have to be pried out of their hands long before they become useless, meaningfully harming their livelihood (as replacements won't be affordable to them - they can't buy a ten-year old used truck/tractor because that's also fossil fuel based), which doesn't seem plausible without violence.

1a) Also, replace almost all ships worldwide.

1b) Also, replace all the fossil fuel based house heating systems. Poor regions without a centralised supply heating their homes with firewood? You're not allowed to burn that anymore, you need to build infrastructure to supply you with nuclear electricity.

2) Stop concrete production unless you also sequester enough carbon to compensate. That pretty much means destroying large parts of construction industry by making it prohibitively expensive, especially in poorer countries.

2a) Also, revamp all worldwide steel production.

3) Have everyone worldwide stop eating beef.

These three things won't be sufficient, but are required to even approach zero emissions. Does it seem plausible to suceed in somehow forcing everyone worldwide to implement such policies within a decade?

> These three things won't be sufficient, but are required to even approach zero emissions. Does it seem plausible to suceed in somehow forcing everyone worldwide to implement such policies within a decade?

So governments should better finance mitigations for the consequences of climate change.

There's no magic external source of resources. The wallet of "governments" is the wallet of the people. If people don't vote for a huge increase in taxes to finance mitigation or prevention (I mean, that's the whole point - the scale of resources needed for preventing climate change is very, very large, it's not like you can just increase the budget deficit by 1% and fund that), then governments can't and won't finance large scale mitigation or prevention.

Of course, people will eventually be forced to finance mitigations or suffer the consequences unmitigated - but that's not now, that's later. Prevention is likely to be much cheaper and more effective, but as the people aren't willing to pony up the enormous resources for prevention, well, then they'll pony up enormous resources (or take enormous suffering) when the time comes. But apparently not much earlier.

And the fact that causes and effects aren't equally distributed doesn't mean that countries (both governments and people) who suffer less will be willing to finance mitigations for the countries who bear the worst of the consequences.

>Electricity is just a small part (roughly 25%) of them.

25% is not a small part at all and as for the 7.5 years reactor construct/expensive claim, i'm afraid you need to update you knowledge about small scale/modular nuclear reactors, this is not the 60s-70s.

Can engineers? Even if we identified the ideal plan, it would still need funding.

How about avoiding 4C, or 6C, or worse?

If the US, which is the largest emitter per capita, and the EU, and the other first world countries can get to zero emissions while maintaining a good standard of living, that at least can provide a longer term template for the developing countries that gets is to some stable level, even if it is above 2C.

We can tell developing countries that they have 50 years where they can emit at current first world per capita levels while they raise their standard of living, but then they have to go to zero like the first world has, or they will be subject to sanctions, high carbon tariffs on their products, and things like that. Throw in good aid packages to help them develop and build their zero emissions infrastructure.

You are totally right and totally wrong at the same time. Yes - the solution must be in large parts a technological and scientific solution, there are so many things we have to change. No - only engineers and scientists will not make a difference, engineers work for the government or companies and both need policies to shape markets for their products or investments. We need the public at the same time to shape the markets and give the engineers something to work with. Addressing climate change means changing the incentives and the direction of our technological development... and in a democracy we all get to decide on that, that politics.

> The solution to climate change is not governments and politicians and lawyers. It’s engineers. It’s always been engineers.

As long as politicians continue to play their games, engineers won't be able to accomplish anything. Solving this problem requires a widespread increase in enlightenment, and as far as I can tell a vast majority of the population thinks that only applies to people of the other political/religious persuasion, but it really applies to all of us.

Did you watch Armageddon or Independence Day? Politicians are cornerstones of the solutions in both movies...

Especially presidents in fighter jets.

I kind of wish we were facing a killer asteroid or alien invasion instead of climate change, because the former two would be much easier to deal with. What's killing us with climate is the level of global coordination it requires.

Basically a scientific issue wrapped in a political issue with a big huge asterisk that says even if we do all the right things we're triaging the patients, not curing them.