
Making America Carbon Neutral Could Cost $1T a Year - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-13/making-america-carbon-neutral-could-cost-1-trillion-a-year
======
millstone
This is a profoundly misleading headline!!

The word "could" here is carrying all the weight. The report from which that
number is derived gives a range of estimates, and the $1T figure is at the
extreme high end. The median is $300 billion, the 25th percentile is negative
$90 billion (it saves money), the 75th percentile estimate is $730 billion.

Yeah it "could" cost $1T if there is "little to no technology innovation over
the next four decades." Or it "could" result in billions worth of savings.
Both are supported by the report.

Here is I believe the summary report from which this number was derived [1].

1: [http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/US...](http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/US_Deep_Decarbonization_Technical_Report_Exec_Summary.pdf)

~~~
ttul
Also: define “cost”. If you include the benefits of avoiding a climate
catastrophe, then nearly any amount of spending today will return a profit
over the long run.

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andrewstuart
"Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in
Australia"

[https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-
rea...](https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-
reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/)

Still, it's hard to imagine the companies that currently receive fossil fuel
subsidies would be happy to say "hey, don't give it to us, spend it on
preventing the end of civilisation"

~~~
vivekd
US fossil fuel subsidies are 3 billion according to wikipedia

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies)

This is different from your source which estimates US fuel subsidies at over
half a trillion

A little reading reveals the source of the discrepancy, according to your
article

>The largest contributor to fossil fuel subsidies is the under-pricing of
local air pollution, as the impacts of smog and particulate emissions have
significant health impacts and are a contributor to early deaths.

so they are looking at the social costs of smog and emissions and including
that in the calculations - which I understand some people might argue is a
subsidy but it seems a little underhanded for the IMF to call it a subsidy in
an economic report because that's getting pretty far from the ordinary use of
the word subsidy.

I think we like to imagine that there is all this money floating around in
fuel company subsidies that we could redirect to alleviating the economic
effects of climate change. And that's the impression that this IMF report
creates. And when we look at it this way then we don't have to face the
reality that we in the West spend our lives ignoring. The reality that not
everyone lives in the comfortable west where an economic downturn is an
inconvenience. The reality that we live in a world where people are literally
starving to death, and taking on these kinds of enormous economic burdens on a
global scale would mean that even more people have to starve to death.

When we pretend that economic effects means the same thing to the 3rd world
that it means to us in the west, when we pretend carbon neutrality is just an
inconvenience and not life or death: Then we don't have to really struggle
with questions like how certain are we that it's human activity that is
causing these warnings. We can just say it's indisputable scientific consensus
without worrying about who the scientists are and what they are actually
saying or whether their continued funding is dependent on the veracity of
global warming.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
The 3rd world also releases a lot less air pollution than the west. (I'm not
including countries like China, which _really_ shouldn't be considered "third
world"). On the whole, rich people tend to release more pollution than poor
people.

And honestly, this is all beside the point--we can talk until we're blue in
the face but who can afford to pay for climate change mitigation, but at the
end of the day, someone has to do it, or we're all going to be much, much
worse off than we are today, rich and poor.

~~~
ddxxdd
The last time I checked, the IPCC ar4 report said that the effects of climate
change would cost about 5% of GDP, starting in 2100. Some Wall Street Journal
economists ran the numbers and found that the net present value of those costs
are about 0.1% of gross domestic product. So the power of economic growth and
compounding interest means that overreacting to climate change is even more
dangerous than climate change itself.

~~~
gruturo
Fine in theory.

In practice we only get one planet, and trying to quantify whether taking care
of it outweighs the loss of income of just letting the damage happen is not
merely wrong, but outright terrifyingly inhuman.

It goes even beyond the Tyler Durden (Fight Club) car recall speech, which I
won't talk about for obvious reasons.

------
esotericn
Why are we valuing this sort of stuff in money?

It's frankly absurd to me. We really need better metrics.

This is rapidly becoming (if it isn't already) a basic maintenance
expenditure.

Fixing the roof of your house doesn't cost money in any meaningful sense other
than at the specific moment that one balance decreases and another increases.
It maintains the value of the house; you have to do it otherwise it falls in.
It's not deadweight expenditure.

Unless you use a net present value calculation that discounts the future into
nothingness. Then, sure, ignore it.

~~~
harry8
You measure it in money so that you know what the opportunity cost is for
'this' allocation of scarce resources whatever the value of 'this' is.

There may be occasions where the cost will never be so high as to preclude the
allocation. Value the benefit in money (which could simply be justified as
being infinite in certain circumstances).

"I feel emotion about this issue, let's allocate all the resources and think
no further." Has generally been a very, very bad idea. Money is the only
metric we have to compare unlike resources when considering allocation and it
makes a lot of sense. It has little to do with our bank balances in such
usage. It should have nothing to do with greed and avarice.

If on the other hand you're talking about propaganda war and the misuse of
analysis to either act or stall, I have little interest in commenting other
than to say such propaganda techniques are evil every single time they are
used and especially in the service of "right" the road to hell is paved with
good intentions. Thinking properly about "what will happen if we do X" is the
best defence we have as a species against just about everything.

I am not making a comment on how well the analysis has been done in the
attached article. I note it is possible to do such things very, very poorly.

------
torpfactory
Carbon neutral is kind of the 'whole enchilada' and like many 100% efforts,
the last few percent cost the most. I don't know the actual cost breakdown,
but if we assume the pareto principle applies, we will probably get a great
amount of benefit for doing 20% of that investment in the most polluting
industries.

Saying it will cost $1T a year is just FUD from that perspective. Sure, doing
it all will be very expensive, but if doing most of it is a hell of lot less
expensive, why scare everyone by covering the 'worst case scenario'?

~~~
Wowfunhappy
This begs the question, what would the cost of 95% carbon neutral be?

(We absolutely need to pay for it regardless, but it's still worth knowing
these numbers, if only for planning.)

------
orev
The thing about “cost” is, it’s about spending money. When you spend money it
goes somewhere — to someone, which most people would call creating jobs. So we
can spend $1T and make a ton of jobs, make money move around the economy which
drives the engine, and in the end we’ve made the world a better place. Why
exactly are Republicans against this plan? Aren’t they supposed to be the job
creators?

~~~
hackeraccount
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)

But it's as easy that the people opposed see the opportunity cost - if you
spend $1T on this then you're spending -$1T on something else. Imagine if the
Republicans proposed spending $1T on the military - why oppose it? It'll
create jobs, right?

~~~
ptah
but it will produce instruments of death so not really the same

------
athroway
"It's cheaper to just die." Interesting argument at least.

------
amacalac
How much could "Not Making America Carbon Neutral Cost a Year"?

~~~
wallace_f
afaik economic markets indicate, surprisingly, some open questions about this.
For example, real estate in vulnerable markets such as is popularly known in
Florida hasn't shown evidence for pricing in cotastrophe.

~~~
bryanlarsen
Which just could mean that they expect the government to build sea walls and
other mitigation measures as well as pay for rebuilds after hurricanes.

~~~
dev_dull
Or, more likely, most people don’t think the situation is as dire as certain
politicians and costal elites make it out to be.

~~~
notfromhere
Markets aren't rational because people aren't.

~~~
wallace_f
Is there something more rational than a market in the absence of scientific
evidence?

------
frankbreetz
This is how much the tax cut from last year cost. We can go ahead and undo
that and call it equal

~~~
tdhoot
What's your source on the tax cut costing $1T/year?

~~~
lamarpye
Didn't AOC disseminate that information to her minions recently? It has
probably infected some of the HDBs on HN.

~~~
dang
Please keep partisan flamebait off HN.

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

~~~
lamarpye
Why? I see people on HN indiscriminating shitting on Republicans. Why can't
take a shit on an idiot on the left?

Is that stated policy of HN that only people on the right can be shitted on?

~~~
dang
No; the policy is that you must follow the site guidelines, even if others are
breaking them.

We all perceive the other side as doing bad things more. That's a cognitive
bias. To counteract it, we have to inhibit the impulse to stick it to the
other side "equally". Does that make sense?

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

------
sheeshkebab
Bloomberg, America is subsidizing $650b/year using fossil fuel
[https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA...](https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA2019089.ashx)
-

~~~
dev_dull
Even within the comments I’m seeing “fossil fuel subsidy” amounts jump around.
Besides, are basic “all business” subsidies included in that number, such as
depreciation? How much of it is specifically for fossil fuels

------
matt_the_bass
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t a significant portion of those
costs translate to new business opportunities for the suppliers of said
solutions? If so, is it really fair to call it a straight cost? Isn’t it
really a forced spending on certain technologies?

------
TheCoelacanth
US GDP is about $20 trillion. Spending 5% of productivity keeping the planet
habitable seems utterly reasonable.

------
credit_guy
Who's looking at net zero emission? Let's get back to the Paris agreement
targets. The Obama administration enacted the Clean Power Plan [1], with the
main aim of having the 2030 emissions 32% below the 2005 levels. The last
official numbers from the EIA [2] show a level in 2017 that is 14% below the
2005 level. The EIA does not have final 2018 numbers yet, but it project an
uptick in emissions, followed by a decrease in 2019 and 2020, so in 2020 we'll
be roughly at the same level of 14% below 2005. That leaves 18% reduction to
be achieved in 10 years (after 14% in 15). Very difficult, but not impossible.
It obviously depends on who's in the White House, but not exclusively.

The bad news is that the EIA projects that the US emissions will remain at the
roughly the current levels until 2050.

What can be done? Obviously, more renewables are a potential answer; the EIA
already included them in the projection, assuming current laws and government
incentives, and reasonable technological advances. If we want more renewables,
we probably need a bit more government subsidies, or maybe a bit of help from
Musk.

Nuclear is another option. I'm personally very pro-nuclear, but I'm aware of
the general reservations, so I'm not holding my breath.

Replacement of coal power plants with natural gas achieves substantial
emissions reductions, but this was taken into account by the EIA .

Massive changes in automotive fleet from gas-powered to electric were not
projected by the EIA ([4], p. 25: "petroleum remains the dominant fuel used in
vehicles throughout the projection period").

But here's the biggest way you can make a difference. Just say "Yes". Yes as
in "Yes in my Backyard". Yes as in the opposite of "Not in my Backyard". If
more building is allowed in the main metropolitan areas in the US, then tens
of millions of people would move from suburbs to the densely populated cities
like NYC or SF. Population density means less transportation for lots of goods
filling the malls, less construction for streets, better building insulation,
more people biking to work or using public transportation, fewer school buses,
I can go on and on.

The best part is that this would not involve a sacrifice to the economic
growth. This would go hand in hand with increased economic growth. How many
startups are not viable in SF because the rent is so damn high?

Who would not benefit? People who expect that buying a house means the right
for future capital appreciation without moving a finger. Some would even go as
far as characterizing these people as rent extractors.

Oh, and I think we should also desalinate more water and plant more trees.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan#Aims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan#Aims)
[2]
[https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/](https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/)
[3]
[https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773)
[4]
[https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf)

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tonyedgecombe
That's not as much as I thought it might cost.

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pragmaticlurker
and saving Earth is priceless. Abolish usage of Carbon, now

~~~
swarnie_
We should probably set up a viable replacement first before throwing the baby
out with the bath water right?

