It doesn't seem to get talked about as much it should but the economically efficient way to net zero is for rich, but non-sunny places to install solar in poor but sunny places and split the carbon reduction 'credit'. It’s a win-win-win.
I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border.
EU should do it at home too, as its the smart thing to do regardless, but bang-for-buck probably depends more on a) geography, b) growth rate of electricity usage, c) displacement of coal power, followed by poorly regulated methane extraction.
India is already doing it. Not at a rapid enough pace to meet all of the national demand, but at least my state (KA) has the lowest coal consumption and is still selling electricity to other states.
India does have some good work in this area but at the margin India will think "should I invest one more dollar in this?" and the answer will be "No, it will only gain me 99c that I can capture".
But that gain, unlike the carbon output, will be bounded by the national border, unless there's some way of exporting it for cash.
EU carbon tariffs will have a similar effect, making Indian goods relatively cheaper on the export market if they invest in solar.
This comes up again and again. The famous "Renewable Energy Without the Hot Air" for example is about how the UK could generate it's own power cleanly.
Which is effectively irrelevant in a global context of 60 Million vs 11 Billion people, but it makes phasing out fossil fuels seem harder so there's a lot of people pushing it as an unstated assumption.
Tangential to this, there is the Morocco solar project - where the plan is to export via HVDC link to the UK - will this result in UK energy prices influencing those of Morocco? "Ideally" the production site should have access to cheaper energy since it's "their resource".
Thats a good example. It would be better for 'global' warming if Britain just bought carbon credits from Morocco and skipped the transmission line.
Morocco gets cheap, clean energy independence and industrial investment, the world gets less fossil co2 and even if they get taken over by Martians in the future that don't respect human laws, the climate benefit is already delivered and can’t be "cut off".
However, the same groups that have poisoned the well on carbon "taxes", seem to have really done a number on the whole concept of offsets and emissions trading.
Free market economics? Not acceptable if it hurts fossil fuels and helps the poor, only vice versa it seems.
"Free market" economics are broken for nonrenewable resources, since they misprice them - don't take future scarcity into account at all, and encourage an all-you-can-extract economy.
I wonder how much more effective in economically damaging Russia it would be to push solar (and efficiency, insulation etc.) in regions on its southern border.
EU should do it at home too, as its the smart thing to do regardless, but bang-for-buck probably depends more on a) geography, b) growth rate of electricity usage, c) displacement of coal power, followed by poorly regulated methane extraction.