You will never do this easily. If I run a developing nation there is absolutely no way I accept that you, a developed nation with a century of pumping CO2 into the atmosphere, will merely accept a reduction of your annual emissions. I will pump as much CO2 as necessary to raise my population into prosperity and until you have taken out enough GHG to match my historic emissions you're going to have to either take me with guns and bombs or you're going to have to pay me.
You don't want to do the first because future millions of people are not worth the lives of present millions. And you're not going to do the latter because you can't afford it. You burnt too much to get here.
So guess what? You're fucked. I'm not going to help you for free.
It's like Europe giving Brazil shit over the Amazon. Buddy, you guys clear cut your forests. Your absolute forest cover doesn't matter. You've killed so many of your forests. Brazil has 60% forest cover. Germany has 30%. You cut your trees to build cities. And I can't? No, raze your cities or pay me for 400 years of treelessness.
The thing is that brazil is mostly cutting forests down for slash and burn farming. If they modernized farming practices, the rate of deforestation would drop significantly. The solution there as with most of these questions of climate fairness is for first world countries to invest in technological development of poorer regions. If brazil’s farmers could practice farming in the same way as european farmers, they wouldn’t need to cut forests down.
I'm all for that: the approach of paying them not to do it, either with tech or money (pure dollars or carbon-taxing imports and your local production or anything like that).
They have to subsidize because labor and land are more expensive the Europe than Brazil, it has very little to do with how efficient the farming techniques are.
> They have to subsidize because labor and land are more expensive the Europe than Brazil
Yeah, mechanization is lower in Europe... (This is related to the subsides.)
Anyway, those waves of temporary immigrants that every year go to Europe from poorer neighboring countries aren't much more expensive than Brazilian labor.
It's absolutely true, but put this way, it lends an argument towards force-subjugating the entire planet under one government just to end the bickering about fairness. Global warming isn't fair.
What I'd honestly want to see happening instead is developed nations doubling down on greentech, and donating all of that (+ expertise and IP) to developing nations, so that the latter can leapfrog the CO₂-intensive energy generation methods. After all, the developing nations aren't into greenhouse emissions for the sake of greenhouse emissions - they just want to have the same level of prosperity for their people as the West enjoys. So I say we should just give them the means to achieve that without burning fossil fuels, for free - and screw intellectual property and some perceived "fairness". This is a global problem, we're all in this together.
There is no “greentech” that mitigates the environmental damage of the luxury everyone wants, which is space. And no one with kids is going to voluntarily accept living in cramped apartments while other countries have individual houses on lots.
Increased space per person => increased fossil fuel usage => increased emissions.
Maybe the greatest “greentech” would be dissuading having kids, either culturally or economically.
I’m not sure everyone considers space the top luxury. Just look at most Asian/European metropolises: people are happy to sacrifice space for other luxuries.
Wouldn't read that much from it. They're likely sacrificing space because they have little other choice (Japan, HK?), or because cities are where the good jobs are.
> And no one with kids is going to voluntarily accept living in cramped apartments while other countries have individual houses on lots.
Families with children all over the world have been accepting that. The urbanization of the developing world is mainly people moving from villages where they had their own home (or at least a family compound) to cities where they live in modern blocks at best, shantytowns at worst. Once the first generation gets installed in that modern block, successive generations simply accept living in a block as normal – yes, some might dream of their own home on their own land, but that is regarded as something available only to a select few, not a mainstream thing.
Space means more miles driven, more ground paved with cement/concrete/asphalt, more distance water/electricity/gas/sewage/trash has to be pushed.
The amount of (developed) land a person uses is a rough proxy for quality of life in the developed world, and it is afforded by ignoring the long term externalities of fossil fuels.
Obviously everyone wants a detached single family house with a garage and a couple cars and a backyard for their kids and a few flights every year for the family, but if the environment is buckling with such a small portion of the population enjoying these benefits, there is no chance everyone can.
Overall consumption needs to go down, which means lower consumption per person, and/or fewer persons.
There are ways to do it. Sometimes you just need the tech to exist and you just need to drive down the price. Subsidies to build solar have done a great job in that respect.
It's just not enough until it becomes crazy cheap, though. You have to be way better than fossil fuels to match up because of their advantages.
And no one has the power for global subjugation. No single group of currently allied nations has that power. So that's a safe thing. It simply can't happen. I doubt America could even subjugate Mexico, which is next door.
The hopeful side of this might be that the economies of scale in renewable energy such as wind and solar have been funded by the wealthy countries. Thus the developing nations are in a far better spot where it may even be cheaper to use renewable sources than GHG producing sources.
If you consider that coal plants also come with negative health effects on a population (elevated cancer rates, etc) - it makes even more sense.
Compare this to how the U.S. invested in developing fiber optic technology - it was INSANELY expensive to build out fiber networks in the 80s/90s, and now it's nearly free.
The small countries who waited until ~2005 or after were able to build out their internet infrastructure for a fraction of the cost.
Perhaps a similar effect is taking place with energy, but I may be overly optimistic.
You can say this but no nation as a whole has the balls. That's the power of fighting off an invasion from a rich country. I can lose ten for each one of yours and you will lose hope first.
To say nothing of the fact that the first American soldier who dies to stop climate change will cause, by his death, the crucifixion of your "liberal tree huggers". Your internal politics will fracture and break you. You are too weak for this.
And if you're European, your populace doesn't have the appetite to use guns and bombs to stop climate change anyway.
There's no need for invasion or occupation, bombing is enough - look at per capita carbon footprint of Afghanistan or Somalia. And that can be done "cleanly" with drones, no risk for the attacking nation.
Other than that, some parts of American / Western population would be gladly sold on "the overpopulated non-whites are destroying the world by over-consumption and need to be kept in check" - without realizing the irony of "over-consumption" and without seeing the parallels between "overpopulation" rhetoric and eugenics of old.
Moreover eternal war is more money for the capitalists, while there's little profit in saving the world peacefully. And you know who truly rules the West.
So hopefully we can all agree on stuff. I'm not sure it's all that likely.
EDIT: also if you're a "leader of a developing nation", chances are you're going to see effects of climate change, like drought and famine, way sooner than the rich parts of the world. And if you get no aid because you refuse to cooperate ... you know. Maybe your replacement that got to power after you got hanged by an angry mob will do more solar panels or whatever.
The developed world can't afford it. Both those countries were fucked already. And the Afghanistan war barely has support - despite sheltering someone who performed the most significant terrorist attack on America in decades, perhaps centuries. If you want to stop Brazil or China or India from industrializing you're in for it. It's not going to work. It won't work there and it won't work in Pakistan or Indonesia. And it won't work in Nigeria. And it won't work in Argentina.
You just can't do it.
And the benefits of industrialization are huge. Especially now before we put carbon caps in because everyone knows you get grandfathered in.
When the famines come, you'll be expected to buy food. And the West will be expected to sell it. Because what are you going to do, say "No aid because you didn't play along"? You'll get absolutely mulched in your Parliaments and your Congresses.
To say nothing of what will happen, which is that China will sell them food because it is unlikely everyone gets a drought at the same time. And then you will have committed a geopolitical own goal.
You can force a lot of things. A lot of things. But China put the cat among the pigeons. Everyone knows that burning hella fossil really fast is optimal, because sooner or later the West is gonna ask for some deals. And since we'll wipe the slate clean of emissions then, it is optimal to burn now. Burn everything because the jubilee will come.
It's so weird, in movies there's always the villain going out of their way trying to "destroy the world" and it seems so far fetched - and now I'm talking to one.
Hahaha! I am flattered. But, like all the villains in the movies, I don't see myself as the bad guy. You're trying to screw me out of my share while clearly not contributing your share, and I have access to a slow WMD you can't stop. That's just bad negotiating on your part.
You can:
1. Try to disarm me, but you are unable.
2. Try to not screw me, and it'll be fine.
3. Do your bit, and it'll be fine.
Listen, what that will look like is that the US+Europe has to reduce carbon emissions some 75% for a few decades and India+Brazil+developing_nations get to boost theirs to 250% for a few decades. Then we will all have emitted the same carbon into the atmosphere and the playing field is leveled. Fair. Equitable. Unachievable only because you don't want to be fair or equitable.
That's why the countries with the most resources and technology have to graciously give those things to developing nations. Lead by example, but make sure that any nation can also have nuclear power, electric vehicles, etc. It's simple really, you stop letting any one person or family hoard massive pipes of resources. Yes this is something like socialism, but with everyone finally realizing that acting in their own self interest is identical to fixing the climate problem. No one can escape that. I assure you Elon doesn't want to go live on Mars by himself.
If anything I think the global pandemic has shown how unprepared we are to come together globally and utilize technology to solve hard problems. Maybe something good will come from all of this in that direction and we will learn from our mistakes.
No. Life is a constant struggle against the encroaching entropy and I suspect keeping civilization going will never get easier.
That said, coronavirus is not even close to being a threat to human civilization. Compare this to 1918 Spanish flu and the contrast can't be clearer. Despite enormous growth in human population and much higher connectivity, we are managing global death toll an order of magnitude lower. We absolutely can be much better but we can't ignore 100 years of progress either.
Yes, but we're stretching our global economies thin in the process. At this point in our civilizational development, it's the systems that are important. If this or a future pandemic pushes most economies past breaking point, the death toll will very quickly skyrocket from a mere million to a bit larger billions dying in wars and starvation.
That's a weird way to see it though. Historically some humans have struggled to acquire the basics of survival, but actually the planet we live on is a bastion of low entropy in a sea of chaos precisely because of "life". Better to go a little hungry and keto than be constantly choking on noxious fumes and fishing nothing but old boots and cans out of the ocean.
Outside of the US and Brazil, I have been really impressed by the ability of people to come together and deal with a massive collective action problem.
If anything, it has shown that people have the capacity to pull together when they need to.
Lots of cases here in Spain but hospitals are generally coping fine (with Madrid being a bit of an exception at present in that hospital numbers are rising as well, but are currently manageable).
To be fair, it's much more difficult to have an effective lockdown a country that has people tightly packed together and that isn't a WEIRD individualistic society.
What we need are bite-sized reforms that are palatable to people across the country. You're not going to sell middle America on a comprehensive multi-trillion dollar environmental package any time soon, but you could sell them a handful of "separate" $500B 'Manhattan Projects' to tackle some things now while you bring them around on the rest.
The only reform that would make any difference is one that would cause lower consumption of fossil fuels, i.e. a large tax on fossil fuels. It would especially negatively impact “middle America”, as it would cause prices for everything to rise, and hence they would be forced to consume less (which is the goal), and hence it wouldn’t be palatable.
Anything short of forcing people to consume less now is pie in the sky thinking.
Not necessarily. Tax carbon heavily and then redistribute the tax equally among all citizens. Anyone using above average carbon net pays into the system, anyone using below average gets a net payout.
Then markets, our most advanced coordination/optimization method can be utilized to figure out how to reduce our carbon emissions.
I wonder if paying out the dividend on a weekly or monthly interval might help with this some degree. Only getting paid at the end of the year tax refund style feels a lot more like a bonus than a reliable paycheck.
The goal is to reduce total use of carbon based fuel sources, not just redistribute wealth.
While I agree that redistributing wealth should also be a goal, any solution that doesn’t lower total consumption is useless, so the pain of less consumption would be felt by anyone consumer more than average (which is probably everyone in the developed world).
Redistribution is just a technique to avoid a conflict of interest. They may end up redistributing between more- and less- wealthy people, but that's just a side-effect. Considering that low-carbon technologies are more capital-intensive than high-carbon tech, the redistribution may actually be from less-wealthy to more-wealthy actors.
We want the tax rate to be high enough to disincentivize carbon-emitting actions relative to carbon-neutral (or carbon-capturing) actions. But if government's ability to finance public operations is also affected, then we have a problem. The revenue-maximum tax rate is based on a completely different optimization problem than the carbon-minimum tax rate.
Making carbon taxes revenue-neutral decouples the two policy objectives.
Even at a neutral tax, carbon use should go down since it becomes more expensive than non-carbon alternatives. There two obvious knobs:
1) tax rate: $/ton of CO2
2) wealth distribution: 100% goes to state vs 100% goes back to population or anywhere inbetween.
The two knobs are independent. You could crank tax rate of co2 way up while still equally dividing the revenue generated and heavily discouraging co2 emissions.
Sulfur dioxide from a supervolcano eruption would ironically not be considered a disaster if it were to reflect sunlight for a few years.
Since we cannot arrange for a supervolcano yet, we could purposely emit sulfur from ships and existing smoke stacks. But wouldn't this cause acid rain eventually? Crops would receive less sun. Fictional remedy to fight solar-powered machines in "the Matrix" - global solar grids would have reduced input.
Though most of their deaths were instantaneous (if it was large meteor) - the other half of the world would have been around for a few more seasons, before the food chain was rapidly squeezed (vaporized atmosphere from ground zero sloshing around pressure systems, sunlight inhibition from dust withering vegetation).
This is why I think that, even facing the chaotic "sloshing" due to projected >8C temperature within a century referenced in parent, a civilization that has practiced/standardized/mass-produced greenhouses at a hectacre-scale could fare well despite the projected drought/storm/fire/sea-rise/permafrost-methane-feedback that is being suggested as consequence. The only "silver bullet" specialty that I know would be beneficial at any point in the future anyways (ability to grow large variety of food in barren areas with limited resources).
Norway has large greenhouse production for higher latitude growth. Commercial sized greenhouse footprint to replace existing traditional outdoor grazing and staple crops would be enormous, which is why it may be more efficient to think of how to modify a biome instead of mass producing plastic/glass/steel enclosed micro climates (which may not be compatible with traditional tractors/combines/dusters which have long been mass produced).
I’m pretty sure there’s studies showing we could drop global temperatures by about 2°C right now with cloud seeding at a cost of a couple billion USD a year.
It's theoretically possible but the change is so drastic and required in so many countries I really don't see it happening. For instance in the US, even if the Democrats get full control, eliminate the filibuster in the Senate, and decide to pass something more extreme than the Green New Deal style legislation that's floating around at best that'll stick for 4 maybe 8 years at the outside.
There is a huge fusion reactor in the sky that we can use. It provides energy much cheaper than any fusion plants we can hope to build in the next fifty years.
I think/hope it's possible by a war-mobilization type of effort, where industries start working together for the goal.
We not only have to stop all emissions to zero, but should probably start removing co2 from the atmosphere as well:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/02/carbon-dioxide-remov...
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/wanna-limit-global-w...
But there are a lot of social issues going along with this: Up to 8% of greenhouse-gas emissions come from concrete, so building things.
I cannot imagine a world without construction, there are so many business processes and jobs involved with that.