Your argument makes perfect sense economically, but only provided that offsets are consistently measured, auditable, and trusted. The incentives to cheat are great: billions of dollars for a number the buyer can't measure directly! At this point I personally write off all carbon offsets as performative marketing nonsense -- sometimes unjust, as some of it is real: but I don't have the knowledge or tools to know which. These obstacles can likely be overcome but it will take effort and there will be setbacks.
A greater challenge is getting deep, visceral acceptance by the population with political control. Japan and Germany shut down their nuclear plants because of knee-jerk panic, not careful economic calculation or analysis of risk.
Changing a process to prevent emissions is directly measurable on site and less vulnerable to political whim. If I ran an enterprise that emitted a lot of CO2 my first instinct would be to keep the mob from shutting me down, with the efficiency of mitigation a distant second -- absent a strong popular consensus for carbon pricing.
I'm really excited by the possibilities of carbon capture -- but suspect that the social engineering will be at least as challenging as the physical.
Your argument makes perfect sense economically, but only provided that offsets are consistently measured, auditable, and trusted. The incentives to cheat are great: billions of dollars for a number the buyer can't measure directly! At this point I personally write off all carbon offsets as performative marketing nonsense -- sometimes unjust, as some of it is real: but I don't have the knowledge or tools to know which. These obstacles can likely be overcome but it will take effort and there will be setbacks.
A greater challenge is getting deep, visceral acceptance by the population with political control. Japan and Germany shut down their nuclear plants because of knee-jerk panic, not careful economic calculation or analysis of risk.
Changing a process to prevent emissions is directly measurable on site and less vulnerable to political whim. If I ran an enterprise that emitted a lot of CO2 my first instinct would be to keep the mob from shutting me down, with the efficiency of mitigation a distant second -- absent a strong popular consensus for carbon pricing.
I'm really excited by the possibilities of carbon capture -- but suspect that the social engineering will be at least as challenging as the physical.
Interesting. How feasible is 10$ per ton? how far to get there?
We’re working on it!
https://www.edf.org/media/edf-launches-new-research-program-phytoplankton-carbon-solutions
yeah I read your other article on this a day or two ago.
Absolutely agree. And don't forget nuclear power which doesn't produce CO2...