[acdha]

> Without a focus on the supply side, all of our current consumption-focused climate change policies (carbon tax on consumption, electric vehicle mandates, most recently infrastructure issues etc.) effectively amount to weak virtue signaling that has mostly succeeded in dividing voters and provinces against each other

This is a very bad-faith read of what actually happened. There’s been decades of interest in the supply side, but this isn’t happening in isolation: the fossil fuel industry is massive and has enormous political clout, and they know that there’s no path to a better world which doesn’t involve the fossil fuel industry making trillions fewer dollars. That means that supply side improvements have both been prevented or steered in infeasible directions which conveniently mean fossil fuel consumption won’t drop in the slightest until decades in the future when something very hard finally happens (hydrogen, nuclear). Any time you’re about to repeat a right-wing trope about virtue signaling, know that you’re contributing your time and credibility to assist their propaganda campaign entirely pro bono instead of doing anything which could help.

Re: tar sands, nuclear takes too long to construct and if you did get a plant through you’d want to use it to decarbonize usage directly rather than encourage more oil consumption.

[bostonwalker]

Q: Who decides whether the policy focus is on the supply side or consumption side?

A: The government and its voters.

That’s it. That’s who I am going to hold accountable.

Now, the point I am making that you seem to miss is that in Canada, the supply side is the larger issue. This is because we are a net energy exporter. So hence why to most Canadians outside of Alberta, blaming the consumer while giving the oil sands a pass feels like cheap political theatre.

OTOH Albertans feel very threatened any time the government starts to talk about doing something supply side, and I think many are actually very happy to go along with the political theatre of the demand side focus because they know it doesn’t directly threaten their jobs.

What should we do in an ideal world? Target both. But if I were designing an effective climate policy and had to pick only one, I would do supply side first.

On a side note, studies have estimated that the current carbon tax levels are 5-10x too low to effectively price in the externalities due to releasing the carbon. So yes, it’s virtue signaling.

[acdha]

> The government and its voters.

Do they operate in an ideal state of perfect knowledge or have they possibly been influenced by the billions spent by fossil fuel companies trying to deny or minimize the problem, and massively overstate the economic cost of reducing carbon emissions? By all means, hold people accountable for bad decisions but also recognize that they’re not making those decisions in a vacuum. If you think the carbon tax is low, start your blame with the people who strenuously opposed it more than the people who got you the current tax.

[matthewdgreen]

Overall you’re right about fossil fuel interests blocking progress. But you’re wrong about nothing changing until “far in the future” as well as the part about “hydrogen, nuclear”* being key drivers. China has now built so much solar PV and wind that their emissions are set to peak and enter a structural decline this year. Similar trends are occurring everywhere in the world, just a couple of years behind. It’s just taking time for people to realize this is happening, because the exponential phase of an S-curve produces such fast change that even being one or two years out of date is like reading news from last century.

* As a note, hydrogen and nuclear will be relevant, but only for the last (hard) fraction of it. Ironically, promoting hydrogen and nuclear as the “only viable technology” seems to be the latest PR campaign pursued by fossil interests.

[acdha]

I think we’re actually in agreement. All I meant by that was that the fossil fuel companies have been happy to support things like an envisioned transition to hydrogen, biofuels, or nuclear power when that means it’s business as usual for decades until [hypothetically] some major change happens and our emissions will drop precipitously. Toyota is similarly happy to talk about how green they’ll be in 2040 while heavily advertising that you need a $60k ICE Tundra to drive to the office in the meantime since those have a much higher profit margin than the few hydrogen vehicles they can sell.

I strongly agree that nuclear is relevant for some last n% stuff but am hoping that the renewable boom will buy enough time to deploy it. As you noted, the capacity there has been on a reassuringly massive growth curve with no barriers to stop it other than politics.