Making America Carbon Neutral Could Cost $1T a Year

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-13/making-america-carbon-neutral-could-cost-1-trillion-a-year

by pseudolus • 7 years ago

22 42 7 years ago

amacalac• 7 years ago

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

wallace_f2• 7 years ago

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• 7 years ago

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.

deogeo• 7 years ago

Article form of https://imgc.artprintimages.com/img/print/yes-the-planet-got...

athroway• 7 years ago

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

frankbreetz2• 7 years ago

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

tdhoot• 7 years ago

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

lamarpye2• 7 years ago

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

frankbreetz2• 7 years ago

Your right, I was mistaken, it seems to $1T/10 years

andrewstuart• 7 years ago

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

https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies-rea...

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• 7 years ago

US fossil fuel subsidies are 3 billion according to wikipedia

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.

Wowfunhappy2• 7 years ago

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.

torpfactory• 7 years ago

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'?

Wowfunhappy2• 7 years ago

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.)

sheeshkebab• 7 years ago

Bloomberg, America is subsidizing $650b/year using fossil fuel https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA... -

dev_dull2• 7 years ago

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

esotericn• 7 years ago

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• 7 years ago

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.

orev• 7 years ago

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• 7 years ago

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?

ptah2• 7 years ago

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

ptah2• 7 years ago

they claim to be, but generally aren't. i also think that it should be framed as a fiscal stimulus

credit_guy• 7 years ago

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 [2] https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/ [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773 [4] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf

millstone• 7 years ago

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...

ttul• 7 years ago

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.

pragmaticlurker• 7 years ago

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

swarnie_• 7 years ago

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

tonyedgecombe• 7 years ago

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

matt_the_bass• 7 years ago

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• 7 years ago

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

Making America Carbon Neutral Could Cost $1T a Year

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