* Global population is exploding. We passed 2B as recently as 1927, now we are close to 8B. Most of this historically unprecedented tsunami of people aspires to an energy-rich lifestyle, by hook or by crook.
* Most of the global carbon emissions are produced by non-Western countries. Led by China, whose emissions are more than US + EU combined.
* How do you scale back energy intensive economies, without being rolled over by countries with no such compunctions?
Are you intentionally using per country rather than per capita numbers. This appears to be a talking point I see it so often, but it's hard to tell if people are just repeating it without thought.
Carbon tariffs let you penalise any country that doesn't play by the rules. We already do similar for other environmental and social reasons. Plus, the environmental option is often cheaper and more efficient, it's only a short term hit to entrenched interests. So really you should be worried about African nations leapfrogging you to cheap solar based manufacturing while you get locked into expensive fossil fuels to keep Republican donors rich.
So too the "global carbon emissions arms race" seems to be a wildly popular red herring. Yes, China has a brief window now where they have the highest emissions, but China is also moving the fastest at mitigating carbon emissions and is on track at moving a lot faster than the US or EU in cracking down on carbon emissions. Perhaps ironically to someone of your apparent perspective, but the higher population density of China, and predominance in massive river and coastal cities, has left China with far more incentive and immediate climate crisis concerns than most of the US and some of Europe are currently facing. The US and EU "developed world" seems more at risk of being "rolled over" by the efficiency gains China is making in "green" markets than any threat that China is just going stockpile gas in some Mad Max style race to the bottom (of the oil well). Your next car could be Chinese because they are taking Battery Electric seriously, whereas US manufacturers still have some weird idea that the market for BEV is just a toy to play with. (At least the EU manufacturers aren't rolling over and practically giving the market away.)
Tariffs. Import duties. Trading blocs that exclude anyone who isn't on board. It's already been done with copyright and other IP.
Ad 2: A lot of goods used by us are produced in China, so there are a lot of externalized emissions (hence the "kwh used for production & transportation requirement).
Ad 3: You hope the other countries realize they're committing civilizational suicide. Again: I'm open for good ideas. (And again no, "war" is still not a good idea).
So, let me summarize: You realized it's a global problem. What's your conclusion? Judging by what you write: Just do nothing and hope it's still okay-ish when we turn 80/90?
> Even better: Try to get elected with that
I don't live under a Swiss model of direct democracy, or even one of the better forms of proportional representation. We disassembled most local government powers and gave them to central. A majority of votes are pointless and wasted in safe seats. Many consider my country (the UK) one of the least representative implementations of "democracy" on the planet - with good cause. Only the top 2 - 4 issues and latest "idiot soundbite" swing elections. Scarily the Murdoch media can still apparently swing elections.
Where I live there's no point voting - there's too many retirees who've paid off mortgage, kids moved out etc who are voting solely on tax and pension levels.
Which leaves a) achieve a miracle of making it a key issue for Murdoch (or Lebedev, Desmond, Barclay Brothers etc) or b) get a world so hugely impacted that it's above health, employment and tax for most including the pensioners... Or I guess wait for the revolution? ;)
It isn't really necessary to ease this in at all if it's used to fund a dividend. Paying $5000 more for gas and electricity is no problem when you get the full $5000 back. All it does is make it cheaper to do something different than you are doing, because then you still get the $5000 but don't have to spend it all -- which is exactly the point.
You might even want to go the other direction in that case -- raise the tax in regions with bad transit, which would also increase the dividend in that region and give people there more incentive to at least buy electric vehicles etc., since they're the region with the highest carbon emissions per capita and most in need of remediation.
> On the packaging of any product (from bottled water over electronics to toothpaste) print the amount of energy used in production and for transportation.
Most people aren't going to care, and the carbon tax should take care of it anyway by making wasteful products cost more.
> Punish producers of goods that break early (e.g. define minimum durability requirements for various product groups).
Same thing there. The combination of "things cost more but you have more money (from the dividend)" causes the market to start to have a preference for durable goods, without actually harming the economy because it always nets to zero.
You really can let the market solve the whole problem just by pricing carbon appropriately. There is no need to micromanage it.
Then people stop buying fuel, and the tax income from fuels taxes dries out, and then the state no longer has the funds to pay those dividents. The state will need to stop paying dividents. Yes, emissions went down (a good thing), but also people's standard of living went down.
Since the alternatives are very close to cost competitive already, that isn't a huge hit if any, and greater economies of scale may even invert it and increase standard of living once they hit critical mass. All the tax does is cause people to have a preference for the new technology over the old one when it would have otherwise been about even.
And by the time the dividend goes to zero because nobody is buying fuel anymore, that also means that nobody is paying the tax anymore either. The only difference is that then every car is electric, which by that point cost about the same or less to own than gasoline cars traditionally did.
Haven't seen this election's manifesto yet, but in 2017 their manifesto was judged more financially credible - by the IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) - than that of the bloody Tories.
Brexit reveals there are some major failings with the system and how it can be hijacked by a focused minority group (e.g. the ERG), but it is not subject to the major US weakness to the {right|wrong} individual.
American Presidents don’t get monarchical powers. Trump has been able to deliver on almost none of his promises. But the leader a party picks is indicative of the mood of its policy makers writ large.
They threw out the baby with the bath water when getting rid of overly strong, and political union affiliations... The core premise of constraining capitalist excess, of aiming for redistribution, or "fairness" still resonates with a UK electorate. Despite 40 years of neoliberalism.
I suspect the party still hasn't quite found the right balance to get elected, and Corbyn individually is quite a huge negative for the party electorally, but their policies are interesting. Some of them feel desperately needed and long overdue. The Conservatives have brought forth the same policy for 40 consecutive years with almost nothing new or nuanced. Just more of the same - even in areas where they have failed badly. :)
Shitty leaders lose elections far more often than good leaders win them.
> American Presidents don’t get monarchical powers
It's surprisingly close and relates to Congress much as 18th century monarchy related to Parliament.
> the leader a party picks is indicative of the mood of its policy makers writ large.
True, but that again highlights the difference. A UK PM is often a markedly different MP on Parliamentary track record and voting to their administration.
> The Conservatives have brought forth the same policy for 40 consecutive years with almost nothing new or nuanced. Just more of the same - even in areas where they have failed badly.
How can you say that Tories "failed?" As you say, Labor had to become "Tories but with some social spending" in order to win any elections. When your opponent needs to adopt much of your platform to be viable, isn't that winning? Same thing happened in the U.S. after Reagan. For 25 years they had to be "Republicans with some social liberalism." I call that winning.
I did say areas where the Tories have failed. The con of austerity that has unnecessarily contracted the economy and massively escalated the debt. The destruction of public services for reasons of dogma. The decline of NHS standards under every Conservative government through deliberate under-funding and artificial imposition of expensive market solutions to non-problems - e.g. the embarrassing failure of privatised parole and prisons in the UK, or the failed NHS internal market, all of which added cost. As an aside, that's why I am heavily against re-nationalisation of industries under Labour. Even if they manage to work well during a Labour term they'll fail hard under the Tories - as a matter of dogma. The nett effect will be more cost and worse result, and long term under funding. Much better to have gone with hard regulation than nationalisation. As is, nationalisation is their weak point that worked during post-war consensus, not any more.
Winning at all costs, if you compromise your raison d'etre and forget those you once existed to help, is simply power for power's sake. It's why New Labour left, and still leaves an uncommonly bitter taste in UK politics - whether you were one time supporter or not - they were essentially bait and switch. Elections were an absence of choice when a New Labour manifesto could have been credibly put out by the Conservatives in a different cover. Vote on who has the nicer smile, nothing else much matters. The trust of politics reached a new low.
Which is not to say Labour hadn't been through a process of highly damaging self-harm captured by extremists in the years before Blair became leader. Blair was probably necessary to retain a party of any description. The Conservatives are now engaging in a similar level of extremist self-harm surrounding Brexit - when the Brexit dust settles we will see what long term damage that brings. I suspect it will be significant, perhaps as significant as Labour's troubled decades.
Both sides of the Atlantic the left seems to have been particularly slow to find an answer and reaction to neoliberalism of the right. Corbyn's Labour, though I dislike the individual, have found something that will resonate well, just as it did in 2017. There is much to like whether on the right or left. But not, I suspect, at this election. Meanwhile on the right, they ran out of ideas long ago. Tax cuts, more markets, less regulation, and um, that's it. I can't remember the last time a Conservative party had something they wanted to achieve or make better. They used to have plenty. Conservative vision is now something for one of their fringe meetings and never hits mainstream.
On that basis, it is very likely that Labour will "win" this campaign easily on policy, but lose the election on Corbyn's rating with voters. After his years of being useless in the Commons, had they put out the exact same policy under a less controversial leader a win might have been far more likely... It remains to be seen if they will spin up entirely new policy with a replacement for Corbyn.
In British elections that disparity is far from uncommon. Labour should have won in 87 and 17 on policy and campaign yet lost at the ballot box. Tories should have won on campaign and policy in 05, but lost the ballot. Then there's cyclical effects of having had enough of the current incumbent, regardless of "winning" policy. Thatcher could not have won in 92 (The year the FT backed Kinnock's Labour) even with perfect policies, somehow ideal to every voter. The change to Major was essential to that surprise win.
Neither can you rule out effect of an overwhelmingly right wing, and increasingly inaccurate and partisan media.
Edit; Sorry, that was far longer than intended. :)
Most of that friend group are similar "natural Tories". Business owners, and comfortably off rather than all billionaire hedge fund owners or trade unionists and manual workers. 9 out of 10 Labour policies resonate well with us as a rejection of the clear excess and mistakes of neoliberalism. Of the brutal treatment of disabled, poor, and society generally. Of the application of market to utterly irrelevant things. Not as a vote to return to the Labour's Trotskyite Militant Tendency and idiocy of the seventies. We don't need to reinvent history and blame a demographic that knows no better...
I should probably add that for some the 1 in 10 policy that we dislike can sometimes be a vote killer or of veto level. :)
Most of the seventies problems can be explained by a) Nixon abandoning the Gold Standard and disassembly of Bretton Woods, both of which were hugely inflationary and b) the oil crisis. The Conservatives did no better in that era, and often markedly worse - fiscally, on labour relations, on balance of payments, even on defence. Heath did so poorly in the last administration that we had a three day week. Worse than Callaghan's later Winter of Discontent that brought Thatcher. Interestingly Callaghan's Labour were governing strongly in opposition to the unions during that winter...
The Tory move to the right could give Labour a lot of room to maneuver as an actual left-wing party, rather than seeking centrist votes. As I said, Corbyn himself may not be the one to lead it there, but I'd suggest that the 90s were a long time ago and it may be time to find some new lessons.
There is no scenario for keeping us at 1.5 or 2C that allows the developing world to start living better lives that doesn’t involve the developed world going net negative in carbon emissions.
The developing world was given, as I understand it, to grow emissions until 2025 or 2030 and then commit to reductions and caps. Which may have been appropriate for India and China in the 80s or 90s, but hardly in the 21st century. Yet the same measure was probably about perfect for somewhere like Vietnam or Cambodia -- presuming the world never committed to honouring the obligation to subsidise the developing world past the worst and dirtiest of development. Helping a too poor to renewable India never go coal would have been the better choice - even though it would have cost the developed world actual money.
Regarding Asia: I thought of this at a more global scale. Of course it's pointless cleaning up the pool if the other people at the party using it as a trash dump (but maybe someone has to start).
If developing countries aspire to an European life style this will come with more emissions (which you said, and I agree with you). I would be the last to claim that some people should have a less decent life than others.
But the people in those country can see where this path leads, and since they're still "developing" they can try to start on a better path (if they want to). They have the advantage that these days there is greener tech available, so there is no need to go down the dirty road that led us to where we are right now in the west: We dumped a lot of shit in the pool, and still do, and we act as if we can't do anything about it while we should get ourselves together rather sooner than later.
//edit: What I mean is, I think our lifes are little bit too decent; at least with the costs we're paying for them, e.g. by destroying our planet. [Queue pun on technical debt or raking up a bill our (grand-)kids have to pay]
The cynical thing is: People with a lot of money make most of the profit from environmental destruction and can later use that money/resources to ease the effect of climate destruction on themselves and their families/heritage; poor people just try to get by, and have a harder time mitigating the effects.
I think I have a second point for my platform: Shift tax pressure from VAT to income tax and/or taxation on wealth. I should announce this one AFTER the gala with the corporate sponsors; also, this is difficult to balance for economic growth).
Hesitance towards nuclear power is part of the reason the public doesn't take climate change activism seriously.
To be clear I think you're right, but the reason I'd give is that people with financial interests in fossil fuels will spend their money on attacking you and boosting your opponent.
Nothing about the actual steps required seems that unpopular to me. Cleaner air, cheaper energy, better cars and busses? It only seems terrible if you believe the lies put out by the aforementioned fossil fuel interests.
However, remind me while you are punishing people for driving cars, how is the public transit outside major urban areas? Have you been outside urban areas?
"It's impractical for me to live in the middle of nowhere" doesn't actually refute any of their statements though.
If I were worried about spotted owls going extinct, saying "but I _like_ burning spotted owls for heat in the winter" doesn't really mean your actions are not going to have the negative consequence of spotted owls going extinct.
Compared to "hundreds of millions of people in India will die of thirst or starvation" "I like driving everywhere and living in the middle of nowhere" isn't inducing much sympathy.
Of course, you _can_ live in the middle of nowhere and have a pretty low carbon footprint. Ride a bike, eat vegetables, grow your own heating fuel, etc. Plenty of people do just that - here's one I've been following lately https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6vcadTSSQKVsdOudnbqwtg . But "I like having a cheap giant house in the middle of nowhere and driving a long ways to and from work" isn't exactly an argument.
Sad thing is that we are often pushed to live in the middle of nowhere by NIMBYs. Moderate density well-insulated homes near jobs and services that you can get to by bike, walking or transport isn't exactly a miserable life. Copenhageners seem happy enough.
Yes. I lived there for well over a decade and am still regularly visiting.
I elaborated on the meaning of the word "feasible" in the sentence "If public transportation is a feasible alternative", but removed that wall of text for better readability. Maybe should have kept it to clarify...?
> More taxes, less freedom, more punishments.
That's what we're already doing for destructive behavior if someone doesn't understand/care that what they're doing is bad. Look back at the last 30 years and tell me we actually learned that it's a bad idea to destroy our planet?
As indeed is the idea of your grand children living in a post-civilisation world
These are very different environments and public transport should be expected to be very different between them.
In cities, we should expect a high capacity system, like subways, 10-minutes buses and trams.
Gradually, as we move outside the cities densest areas, we should have a lighter but faster system, such as light transit rails, longer but still frequent bus routes.
Eventually, as we move outside suburban areas into rural areas, we should get something that barely exist right now: on-demand transit, like collective taxis, or flexible minibuses.
Doesn't matter. The planet doesn't care how difficult your commute is, and global climate policy shouldn't either. We're far past the point where we can ease in change. We need drastic worldwide change and we need it yesterday. Of course it's going to be very painful for a lot of people, but the level of climate change we're going to see on our current path is going to be an order of magnitude more so.
* Subsidize public transportation (maybe even 100%), and make it a feasible mode of transportation for as many people as possible (at least for daily commutes; bonus: many people are concentrated in cities, so start there).
* Regarding daily driving: If public transportation is a feasible alternative, punish those who still use their car for commuting.
* Massively increase taxes on all kinds of fossil fuels; no matter if used for driving or for electricity (initially ease this in regions with difficult/bad public transportation).
* Make it easier to build regenerative energies (e.g. solar and wind) plus storage systems (e.g. pumped water or battery).
* I'm personally undecided on nuclear fission, but compared to coal it could be the lesser of two evils?
* On the packaging of any product (from bottled water over electronics to toothpaste) print the amount of energy used in production and for transportation.
* Punish producers of goods that break early (e.g. define minimum durability requirements for various product groups).
Would you elect someone with this agenda? I would have a hard time, though I think these points could all be appropriate responses to the climate crisis.
Even better: Try to get elected with that ;-)