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by ridicter
2583 days ago
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>We compared 10 climate policies that stimulate innovation (e.g. carbon taxes, deployment subsidies, cutting fossil fuel subsidies) and found that increasing government budgets for public clean energy research and development (R&D) is the most effective—even more effective than carbon taxes. This causality seems tenuous. I'm confused how an enlarged budget for Renewable Energy R&D necessitates a reduction in emissions? There'a lot of jumps being made there. On the other hand, a carbon tax is straight forward: a tax is applied on carbon, and it creates a "price signal", where fossil fuels products become more expensive relative to those based on cleaner tech. This fundamental price signal--with the price on carbon increasing year over year--incentives investment into renewable energy and clean tech. The market runs full speed towards a clean transition. How would "carbon taxes become more politically acceptable"? The arrow of causality is in the wrong direction: it is the carbon tax that MAKES clean energy R&D the obvious thing to do. And finally, there are tons of studies that have explored what a clean energy mix would look like. Here's Stanford professor Mark Jacobson's: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Coun... |
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How R&D makes carbon taxes more acceptable: One economic model suggests that "if a carbon tax imposes a dollar of cost on the economy, induced innovation will end up reducing that cost to around 70 cents".[72] Given that political acceptability is mainly a function of cost, making clean energy cheaper might make carbon taxes more likely.
We need carbon taxes - there's no question about that. I used to think they're the best policy on the margin, but they do have drawbacks- one being political tractability, and now I've think increasing clean energy R&D is more effective and should be prioritized.