
Climate talks break up with no agreement on carbon trading - chewz
https://www.ft.com/content/33f5d282-1f3f-11ea-92da-f0c92e957a96
======
jandrewrogers
Many years ago, I actively engaged the political discussion surrounding carbon
markets, as I thought I might be able to help. I've been directly involved in
similar types of international negotiations, albeit at a smaller scale and
unrelated to carbon markets. Talking to people involved in the carbon market
negotiation made it abundantly clear why there will never be a useful outcome.

Most of the governments involved in negotiating a common international
agreements on carbon markets unofficially represent for-profit interests
seeking advantage in the structure of the carbon market. There is an enormous
amount of profit that can be realized here, and the good faith actors are in
the minority. This is quite normal even in small international agreements but
it becomes exponentially harder to arrive at an agreement that is minimally
corrupted with respect to its nominal purpose as the profit incentive to
corrupt the agreement increases. The last time I looked in on the current
state of the carbon market negotiations, it had been corrupted beyond
redemption. I have no faith that something useful will result.

This is why international agreements are unlikely to have a material impact on
climate change. International agreements tend to only be effective when there
is minimal profit or advantage to be gained by corrupting the purpose of the
agreement. Climate change activities simply involve too much money for an
international agreement to produce a credible outcome. It is the wrong tool
for the job.

~~~
philips
Do you think carbon taxes can work without international agreement? If so what
approach gives you hope?

~~~
phkahler
Carbon taxes are easy. You tax anyone who pulls it out of the ground or
imports it. With international agreements you might drop the import tax and
let to source country tax the extraction. The producers will just pass the
added cost on to the users. Even this simple solution will be shot down by
politics.

~~~
rhegart
It’s a fat regressive tax at a time when the lower working class is already
rebelling. Invest more in technology and instead increase subsidies and build
transmission lines

~~~
dwaltrip
You can make it non-regressive by paying a dividend that is funded by the
carbon tax revenues. This is also a possible mechanism for making it revenue-
neutral, which could be politically advantageous.

I believe the common name for this approach is "fee and dividend". I'm
surprised I don't see it discussed very much. I would think that it should be
palatable across the political spectrum.

------
josho
Carbon trading is a scheme for bankers to profit from climate change. The
solution is simple —carbon tax. Additionally it is ideal for the carbon tax to
be revenue neutral.

~~~
konschubert
Carbon trading means no additional tax burden is placed on the economy, the
biggest emitters simply pay to those that go green.

By limiting the number of certificates, you can steer exactly how much CO2
will be emitted in any given year.

And the cost of CO2 means that procedures that reduce CO2 emissions become
financially viable, starting with the most effective ones.

Assuming you can track CO2 emissions correctly, it’s a genius instrument.

~~~
mc32
A carbon tax would have similar incentives. Green producers and products get
taxed less than brown producers. It also doesn’t matter if the product comes
from Timbuktu or Savannah, it just matters how green or not green it is.

Carbon trading would result in billionaires and large funds finding a new way
to make more money at the expense of everyone else and solve little.

------
perfunctory
This is not very surprising, is it? How many more data points do we need to
conclude that COPs never achieve anything? I think it’s time to acknowledge
that our “leaders” have failed us.

~~~
chewz
This is the thesis of Naomi Klein books. Current political system and pseudo-
market solutions are incapable of solving the climate problem. And so far,
unfortunately it is proven right.

I do agree in principle (with some reservations perhaps).

[] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21913812-this-changes-
ev...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21913812-this-changes-everything)

~~~
dnautics
Except that if we instituted a simple carbon auction it's provably effective
(not just theoretical, it very effective for NOx and SOx). I suppose that's
not a pseudo market solution, that's a real market solution, unlike all of the
trading proposals being put forth at the moment.

~~~
marcosdumay
An auction is a tax in disguise, the only difference is that if the government
doesn't get the quantity exactly right it will either make the whole thing
toothless or destroy its own economy.

About NOx and SOx, those are local pollutants. Local problems are much easier
to fix.

~~~
dnautics
NOx and SOx are not local pollutants. NOx/SOx emissions in one part of the
world cause acid rain in other parts.

------
imtringued
There won't be a carbon tax in Germany. People are allergic to anything that
has tax in the name. Instead Angela Merkel has chosen to strengthen the CO2
certificate trade in Germany which is known to be ineffective by design [0].
So if international carbon trading doesn't work either then that means there
is no effective policy that will allow us to reach our CO2 goals.

The only hope that we have left is that speculative investors drive up the
price. The more middlemen the better. If everyone bought 100€ worth of
certificates every year and only sold when the price goes up it and keep them
forever if the price goes down then this would at least simulate the effects
of a CO2 tax because the effects would ripple through the entire economy
without requiring action from politicians.

Paying directly for your own carbon sequestration doesn't work because it only
has local effects, doesn't encourage prevention of emissions and it is
effectively a letter of indulgence ("I'm free of my sin").

[0] many sectors are exempt, a base amount of certificates is handed out for
free, the price is always low because there are too many CO2 certificates

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Given that a lot of the representatives flew to the climate talks, and did not
reach any sort of climate deal, the COP25 resulted in a lot of CO2 production
for no benefit.

~~~
melling
The "...but they fly" comment comes up a lot.

Flying results in 2% of global CO2 emissions a year. That's hundreds of
thousands of flights a day over an entire year.

Coal powered electricity results in an incredible amount of green house
emissions, and it's just plain bad for the environment. How about we stop
complaining about flying and stop using coal? Please, note I didn't say fossil
fuels, I said coal:

[https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-
with-...](https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-climate-
change/)

We might actually buy ourselves some real time on climate change.

~~~
goatinaboat
“We” could stop using coal tomorrow and it wouldn’t make the slightest
difference. China’s out-of-control coal mine fires alone amount to more CO2
emissions than most countries and that is still a tiny fraction of their
total.

Flying is relevant because nothing undermines the message more than “you must
curtail your lifestyle but I won’t mine”. Exactly how many climate summits
have been held over videoconferencing? My employer has massively cut back on
flying to meetings, we have a big screen in every meeting room instead, it
works pretty well. Meanwhile politicians and celebrities refuse to cut back on
private jets. There’s no truer form of climate denial than that!

~~~
kolinko
China's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US

[https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&idim=country:CHN:RUS:IRN:POL:USA&ifdim=region&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

~~~
goatinaboat
_China 's CO2 production per capita is half of that of US_

... and their total emission is already double that of the US. Are you saying
China take no action until they achieve parity per capita? I can think of no
other reason you would mention “per capita”.

~~~
tzs
This has been explained to you before:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21596722)

~~~
goatinaboat
Nice condescension, but the "per capita" argument is still complete nonsense.
When China achieves parity "per capita" with the US - which it is on track to
do within the next decade - but with 4x the population, will you finally
understand?

~~~
tzs
Unless you can make the case that the average person in the US is entitled to
put more CO2 into the globally shared atmosphere than the average person in
China, per capita is the only way to fairly access whether a country is
contributing more or less than its fair share.

Yes, it would be bad if Chinese per capita use rose to match US per capita
use, because US per capita use is already way over what is sustainable
globally.

~~~
goatinaboat
The environment doesn’t care what anyone is “entitled” to and the West knows
this and is a case study about how hard it is to reduce. I find it bizarre
that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there and only then start
to reduce, because they are “entitled to”.

Of course, the West is already on that downward trend and China is soaring
upwards with no signs of even plateauing. Within 10 years China will be
technologically independent of the West and the West will have even less
influence over its environmental policy than we do now.

~~~
tzs
> I find it bizarre that anyone suggests it’s sensible for China to get there
> and only then start to reduce, because they are “entitled to”

No one has suggested that. You, however, have suggested that there is no point
in the US lowering its emissions because China emits more total than does the
US.

The atmosphere does not care about arbitrary political boundaries. There's a
total amount of greenhouse gases we can put in it consistent with keeping
global warming under any given target. A ton of CO2 from a person in China is
the same as a ton of CO2 from a person in the US as far as the atmosphere is
concerned.

So if a random person in China being responsible for putting about 8 tons in
per year is unacceptable, then by what logic is a random person in the US
putting in over 16 tons a year fine? By every physical measure, that US person
is doing at least twice the harm to the atmosphere.

The US needs to be the leader on this, not making excuses not to reduce its
own emissions.

~~~
edflsafoiewq
Which is exactly why there is no difference between sixteen tons from eight
people and sixteen tons from sixteen people. The emissions per capita alone is
totally meaningless.

The reason that per country emissions are important is that countries are
convenient political and demographic units.

------
skitout
By the way, IMF says that globally, fossil fuel subsidies represent $4.7
trillion / year...

[https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Glo...](https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2019/05/02/Global-
Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies-Remain-Large-An-Update-Based-on-Country-Level-
Estimates-46509)

------
cryoshon
high profile failures like this are exactly why i'm taking things into my own
hands and starting a company dedicated to making the voluntary purchase of
carbon credits/offsets accessible to the public and to small/mid-sized
companies.

we can't wait for the political leadership to get their game together any
longer, and we can't wait for the part of the population that doesn't belive
there is a crisis to come around either.

we need to start financing the prevention or removal of carbon from the
atmosphere today, using the voluntary carbon markets that we have. there
aren't another five or ten years of indecision that we can afford to waste.
and we don't have any better system for emissions reductions, yet.

those of us who understand the gravity of our present climate situation have
the burden of carrying everyone else on our backs to the extent that we are
able. addressing our planet's health is not something that will be fair in
terms of the responsibilities that we need to take. an idealistic few must
come forth and create the means for our mutual salvation, and they can expect
only to thanklessly toil in the short-term.

it's a bitter pill to swallow, but we need to accept it and start moving
forward rather than getting mired in spite towards those who won't help, or
fatalism that we can't change our situation. taking action will be our
protection against depression, and chipping away at our planet's climate
crisis will inspire others to join our efforts.

send me an email (it's in my profile) if you want to help/join me. i need
anyone and everyone who wants to contribute.

but be warned: if you want to join my effort, at present i can promise you
nothing but my appreciation and the assurance that you're trying to be one of
the good guys.

~~~
zoobab
Carbon offsets are a scam, they do not prevent CO2 to be ___added_ __to the
current levels we have now.

It's just for capitalists to believe they can keep flying by planting trees.

~~~
imtringued
You can buy EU CO2 certificates and resell them for a profit which makes
emitting CO2 uneconomical because of all of the middlemen who are taking their
cut. If you never sell them below the purchase price they won't result in
emissions. It's a win win situation.

------
leppr
[http://archive.is/qnLyL](http://archive.is/qnLyL)

------
rcMgD2BwE72F
There are hundreds of news articles about the COP 25 and somehow we chose the
_Financial Times_ as the article we should comment on. That says a lot about
our bewilderment (cf. their self-serving focus on carbon _trading_ ).

~~~
iudqnolq
What does it say to you?

What it says to me: I know that climate change is an extremely serious problem
we need to solve and I believe economics is the right place to look for the
tools we'll need to incentive people to do better.

~~~
Joeri
Economics has already given us the solution long ago. Climate is an
externality. You solve problems with externalities by pricing them into goods
and services. That was clear for climate change back in the 90’s. Everything
since then has not been in the realm of economics but of politics. If the
climate change problem will be solved, the solution will have to be political.

------
throwaway122378
Corporate and consumerism waste needs to be addressed first.

-Leasing new cars every 3 years -New iPhone every 2-4 years -New clothes every season -Corporate flights vs teleconferencing -Amazon should be there own investigation

And so on.

~~~
EvanAnderson
Wouldn't bundling the costs of the negative externalities associated with the
production of the new cars, iPhones, and clothes as a tax levied against the
manufacturers "address" the "consumerism waste"? Manufacturers are very good
at passing costs on to consumers, and innovating to drive costs down in the
face of competition. If your goal really is to reduce environmental impact
(and not just being "anti-consumerist") then it would seem like using the
market to do that would make more sense vs. trying to change the habits of
mass numbers of individuals.

------
rcMgD2BwE72F
Who think we need carbon __trading __to fight climate change, except traders,
their friends (e.g Financial Times) and their clients?

------
ianai
Anyone have a non paywall source? Might be more of a conversation if we had
something to read.

~~~
LeftHandPath
Fair point.

For the record, though, if you ever _do_ decide to pay for news, FT is one of
a few that are actually worth the money.

~~~
ddevault
It's actually part of the HN submission guidelines that any paywalled article
has to have a known workaround:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

I flagged this submission for that reason.

------
ars
This doesn't surprise me one bit.

Government is 100% of the wrong place to solve this. And that's because they
can't no matter what they do it's impossible for them to do that.

This can only be solved in the research field with better energy sources.

And it can be solved in the finance field with cheaper energy sources.

Government regulation cannot solve this.

~~~
imtringued
>And it can be solved in the finance field with cheaper energy sources.

In Germany the market prices for electricity go down but at the same time the
residential rates go up massively. There are two reasons for that. Firstly
coal plants can't throttle down but PV and wind farms get paid anyway through
a surcharge. Secondly large industrial consumers are exempt from the
surcharge. This means residential users are paying the electric bills of
aluminum smelters, etc. In other words. The cheaper the electricity in Germany
the higher the final price. Isn't that absurd?

The surcharge wouldn't be needed if there was a working CO2 tax or carbon
trade system because all coal plants would be shut down and replaced by load
following natural gas plants which only run when truly necessary.

------
seaghost
Greed will kill us all.

------
plutonorm
The only way this is getting sorted is if a benevolent AI takes the world by
force. And that's not going to happen on this timeline. So we are pretty much
assured to be descending into resource wars, mass migration and civil unrest.
Trump, Boris and Brexit are the first signs of the developed world pulling up
the drawbridges. It's kind of like an emotional response within the brain. We
feel trouble significantly before we can reason about it. The emotional
response is the fast, unthinking systems of the mind which respond to danger.
People on the ground are feeling the danger even though they can't quite put
their finger on the reason. And so we get polarisation and isolationist
policies.

------
acollins1331
The cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere far outweighs the cost of not
putting it there in the first place. We need bold leadership.

------
roamerz
From personal perspective - and I would definitely be classified here as a
carbon tax obstructionist - thanks to the likes of Al Gore and all the tax
happy socialist liberals - go after the visible pollutants. Diesel trucks and
coal burning for example. When the politicians of my state (Oregon) start to
restrict, tax and outlaw things like natural gas I fight them on everything
they do whether it’s right or not because I now believe them to be liars snd
idiots. Lets plant trees and harvest them for building. I like those ideas.
Tax carbon? Promote something do-able to the common sense public at large or
fail. This post is not meant to incite any discord but rather just give an
honest viewpoint.

~~~
imtringued
The obsolete technologies are artificially kept alive through direct and
indirect government subsidies. The only thing that stops us from reducing
carbon emissions is that we don't choose to reduce carbon emissions.

Electric cars are too expensive? Just build more of them and the price will go
down. Battery storage is too expensive? Just build more and the price will go
down. Renewables are too expensive? Just build more and the price will go
down.

It's a matter of choosing the new technology and right now nobody is choosing.
Lots of people are proud about polluting the environment and I don't think I
can change their mind, the government can't. We all know what this means:
nothing can.

------
solarwind
Carbon is not a synonym for carbon dioxide.
[https://www.cfact.org/2019/04/25/carbon-is-not-a-synonym-
for...](https://www.cfact.org/2019/04/25/carbon-is-not-a-synonym-for-carbon-
dioxide/)

~~~
iamaelephant
In common parlance it absolutely is.

------
HocusLocus
Brings to mind an absurd idea of software development companies gathering to
discuss _the international exchange of stack pointers_.

------
LatteLazy
Without the US, China and India, these programs are all pointless.

The US, China, and India are not willing to commit.

So the rest if us might as well go home. I know its encouraging to pretend
things are working. But they're not. The time for non binding commitments
ended in the 90s. Now is (and has long been) the time for cold hard facts.

~~~
makerofspoons
Steep tariffs are needed on goods from countries that won't play ball.

~~~
LatteLazy
If it were the US OR China I might agree. But I don't think we can isolate
both at the same time. Maybe with trump sabre rattling, the Chinese will get
on board. Who knows

------
einpoklum
Carbon trading is when a polluting economy/state throws its weight around to
keep polluting. It's that simple and that wrong.

There should be no such "credits", just emissions reduction plans - and the
states which should be required to reduce the most and the fastest are those
which pollute the most per capita, and the most period.

Of course, this won't happen because the largest polluters are also the most
politically powerful, so they rig things in their favor.

Let's name the names: China, US, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Iran, South
Korea, Canada, Brazil. [https://www.countryaah.com/top-10-countries-that-
contribute-...](https://www.countryaah.com/top-10-countries-that-contribute-
most-to-global-warming/)

What should be negotiable IMHO is:

* How to account for the unfairness in the fact that some countries got to pollute freely for a couple of centuries while others didn't get this "free pass" and are still behind in grid development. * The question of whether absolute pollution should count more than pollution per capita or the other way around. * The extent and the form of aid by richer/more industrially-developed economies should be committed to help with technology to poorer economies which already pollute a lot and will have difficulties adjusting independently.

