"Europe’s steelmakers have one more strong incentive to get decarbonising. Under the eu emissions-trading system, they are currently awarded 80% of their allowances for CO2 emissions free of charge in order to remain competitive with dirtier producers in places like China and India. Over the next ten years the eu will phase out these freebies and replace them with a carbon tariff on dirty imports. If eu steelmakers stay grey, calculates Morgan Stanley, their profits could sink by up to 70%."
> (All in favour of it, just everyone has to play along)
It's worth doing even if others don't. Especially for the wealthy countries -- the poor countries emit relatively little carbon per capita.
The new energy transition is from op ex to cap ex. Looks expensive in the short term but a big win in the medium and long term. Plus you get the benefit of reduced emissions. Sure, other people do, but even if you're selfish it's a good deal.
Wow, China's per capita emissions were, in 2018, ahead of Israel, Ireland, New Zealand, Slovenia, Slovakia, Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Denmark, Italy, the U.K., Hungary, Portugal, Turkey, France, Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Ukraine, Latvia, Romania...the list they're behind may be shorter [1].
I think those numbers lump the emissions from goods produced in china and exported to other countries in with the emissions from domestic consumption. So they are inflated by China's vast exports. Yet even if you use consumption based emissions, China was around Spain's numbers in 2016 and by now probably has overtaken quite a few of the European countries.
Like whats the alternative: get into an arms race to see who can boil the oceans fastest? Oh but we'll make slightly more money than India from steel manufacturing so it will definitely be worth it?
The climate doesn’t care about per capita. The developing world has the majority of the population, so the majority of additional CO2 will be coming from there.
Fun way to look at it, you at the north give us a lot of planned obsolence goods in exchange for our monies. North even gets into politics pushing developing countries infrastructure towards oil economies. and then, we consume what you led us to, and suddenly we're the bad guys.
In effect you‘re saying that countries that are poor today must not be allowed to reach the level of western countries. I don‘t have a good word for it but that‘s a very specific worldview.
If we believe that every country has the right to develop, than the poorest countries emission will increase. Better technology will flatten that increase but those are expensive. Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
Arguably, developing countries nowadays have a _massive_ advantage in that they could industrialise in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the human suffering developed countries went through _because_ of greentech.
Like, instead of committing millions of your citizens to coal mining with picks and steam-powered lifts, you can just buy or produce turbines and solar panels, put them up and enjoy the benefits of electrification. Worst case, you build cheap has turbines and buy or pump LNG.
> In effect you‘re saying that countries that are poor today must not be allowed to reach the level of western countries. I don‘t have a good word for it but that‘s a very specific worldview.
Being charitable, it’d clearly be an environmental disaster if everyone in the world consumed oil at the per capita level of OECD countries. I imagine global oil consumption would multiply manyfold.
> Wealthy countries pioneering the widespread use of these technologies will reduce cost and allow developing countries to deploy them in the future.
I too used to think this, but it seems like most of the progress in solar has come from China. Similar with nuclear power plants.
From my understanding, China's implementation rate for solar was still quite low. Would that not support the point that they're progressing the tech to sell to other countries?
Implementaion rate for solar is low but growing fast everywhere, but China is leading in production, deployment and generation beating the USA and EU combined.
> China was responsible for about 38% of solar PV generation growth in 2021, thanks to large capacity additions in 2020 and 2021. The second largest generation growth (17% share of the total) was recorded in the United States, and third largest in the European Union (10%).
China doesn't have a great geography for solar. Towards the East, it's either too humid or too far North to reap the full benefits of solar panel, and out West there aren't the population centres to make big differences.
So yeah, I'm guessing it's mostly to sell to countries with better sar geographies, especially the US and Australia.
I'm not saying that. I think countries should do what they need to do and hopefully we can figure out how to deal with climate change together. I doubt we keep warming below 2.5 degrees.
I wonder if at some point the EU should block the usage of dirty steel and only authorize carbon neutral steel. This would provide a great incentive for other countries to also invest in clean alternative.
> The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism will apply to imports across several sectors, including steel and aluminum, forcing them to respect EU environmental standards. It will come into effect in 2026 or 2027.
I think that's a great idea and could be applied to a lot of industries with large offshore carbon footprints. Maybe tariffs or quota limits that are linked to carbon?
There are Wikipedia articles for 2015 Indian heat wave (2,500 dead), 2016 heat wave, 2019 heat wave, 2022 heat wave, and the current ongoing 2023 heat wave.
2021 Henan flood killed hundreds and forced evacuation of 800k people.
Imagine what you want, but nobody's laughing any more.
Except that isn’t true anymore. The tight coupling between economic development and CO2 emissions has been broken, and there’s no longer any reason to believe that high CO2 output industry is best way for developing countries to improve their standards of living.
The west might have burned its way to economic development, but developing nations are forging their own paths, and hydrocarbons aren’t the industrial requirement they used to be, or even the most economical way to producing energy. Choosing “green” alternatives also means choosing alternatives that faster and easier to deploy, work incredibly well in decentralised systems, and are often cheaper and easier to repair.
I don't know the solution because the problem is huge, but my strong suspicion is that focusing on industrial efficiency is the largest needle we can move. Specifically, making it economically sensible to use green technologies in developing countries.
They've made commitments, at least enough to convince Europe and the US that they are working on it... but whether they will spend more than $5.20 on enforcement, I doubt. Far more fun and strategic to let the US and EU do what they do and shout "We're with you!" from the sidelines. China also makes 80% of the world's solar panels, so we shouldn't pretend that China convincing the US to decarbonize doesn't have some pretty nice business interest in selling them to us - even though it is only 3.5% of their energy generation over there.
Kind of like how China is a WTO member, claims to support Copyright, upholds Patent Law, and respects Intellectual Property. They also respect their Constitution, including the provisions for Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Speech, and have an independent Supreme Court to enforce checks-and-balances on their President. They also have a Functioning Democracy with 8 other political parties. Anyone who has actually interacted with them in any of those fields...
> Wenbo He, secretary of the Party Committee and executive chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), spoke about China’s green steel plans at the integration conference of green steel, green energy and green finance industries on March 2
> Western Australia is in the running to host a green steel plant bankrolled by the world’s biggest steel maker, China Baowu Group.
> During talks with Trade Minister Don Farrell in Beijing, company chairman Chen Dorong said the availability of clean energy and ore made Western Australia ideal as a site for the new facility.
> The biggest buyer of Australian iron ore wants to decarbonise operations but is also eyeing West Africa, South America and Saudi Arabia as alternatives.
The largest resource companies are making commitments they regret, but are now tied to public statements and shareholders to meet:
Rio Tinto boss says he regrets ambitious emissions targets
> Rio Tinto boss Jakob Stausholm has admitted he regrets the company’s ambitious emission reduction targets, doubling down on comments about the feasibility of moving to renewable energy at the pace expected.
> “There have been a lot of strong statements made [about the energy transition], but I don’t think people have realised and accounted for the process of getting the land, the cultural clearings and then executing the project,” Stausholm told a business breakfast in Perth on Friday.
"Europe’s steelmakers have one more strong incentive to get decarbonising. Under the eu emissions-trading system, they are currently awarded 80% of their allowances for CO2 emissions free of charge in order to remain competitive with dirtier producers in places like China and India. Over the next ten years the eu will phase out these freebies and replace them with a carbon tariff on dirty imports. If eu steelmakers stay grey, calculates Morgan Stanley, their profits could sink by up to 70%."