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by ZeroGravitas 659 days ago
Once you get to a low carbon electricity, it makes more sense to electrify other things (transport, heating, industry) than to worry about the last few percent of carbon in the electricity mix.

This is the kind of economy wide tradeoff that carbon pricing makes explicit.
1 comments
schiffern 659 days ago
I agree that accurate carbon pricing would be great. However it's so politically infeasible (and widely known to be so) that fossil fuel companies have been caught faking support as a foot-dragging strategy.[1]

In the inevitable absence of carbon pricing, such "bridge solutions" get enshrined as special case regulations, resulting in zombie solutions that hang on far beyond their expiration dates. We see this today, where European biofuel zombie regulations are directly causing the clear-cutting of Canadian old growth forests... in the name of "the environment." [2]

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/1012138741/exxon-lobbyist-cau...

[2] https://www.nrdc.org/bio/elly-pepper/bbc-reveals-drax-loggin...

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ZeroGravitas 658 days ago
Carbon pricing is widely and successfully used around the world. The US federal level is a notable outlier in this regard and leads to people having distorted views on the topic.

https://carbonpricingdashboard.worldbank.org/

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schiffern 658 days ago
Exxon is an international group with obviously aligned profit motives, so I trust their actions far better reflect the real (as in realpolitik) international situation over a self-admittedly biased website (PMI = Partnership for Market Implementation[1]).

I see the UK has four entries on this dashboard, but nevertheless they're still cutting down forests in Canada and the USA for "green" biomass, and for their trouble quadrupling the (fully accounted) carbon emissions. Whatever this dashboard actually measures, it's clearly no guarantee against perverse non-market "green" incentives.

Anyway, just pointing out a few of the pitfalls and tripwires on the path to good climate policy. I think we agree in the broad strokes. Cheers

[1] https://pmiclimate.org/

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ZeroGravitas 658 days ago
We might generally agree but not on the biomass scaremongering.

Canada is the worlds biggest exporter of wood products. Of that 20 billion, 17 billion are going to the US. So why the extreme focus on the 250 million going to the UK?

Is it really that implausible that 1/4 Billion might the the residue left after you export 20 billion worth of other wood products?

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