Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

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I think with a lot of these schemes there also a perception of it being a money making cash grab by the local authorites as well. It's a similar thing with residential parking permits supposidly helping out with locals parking near their home and relieving parking congestion but many think it's just a cash cow for the LAs.

Yeah definitely. The tories have really done a great job in spreading misinformation about how local government works and the idea they're all corrupt and dealing in brown envelopes and raking it in.
Again this especially feeds the blukip brigade.

I was just thinking of parking earlier today. My street is horrible for it. The houses have drives but many prefer to park on the street anyway. Real tragedy of the commons shit. And if they attempted to fix it you know there'd be a riot - I was wondering whether an idea could be to grandfather in current residents with free parking passes but make it very difficult for anyone who moves to a street in the future to get this.

I'd be surprised if its the case down London but up here we also tend to have similar issues to America where many just can't conceive of a world where they don't drive everywhere. There's a load of work to be done in shifting fundamental world views.

[Admiral Yi]

Yes. It's complicated too as many of these poorest also tend to have aspirations around getting fancy cars and such. It's hard to make the breakthrough and convince many to go for something that is for the benefit of all.

The big issue I see, and has locally basically been the topic of a video I might hopefully finish in the next month or two. Been on with it for years, not that it shows...
Is that so much of these anti climate change acts just come across as pure sticks. There's no carrots with them.

The poor don't want to reduce carbon output and the rich don't want to reduce carbon output and they don't want to get taxed so the poor can have free money for reducing their carbon output and thus global warming will never be solved.

I'm so glad I'm old.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Yes, I agree with the Admiral.

What we should be doing is massively increasing taxes on the wealthy and increasing the power of the state (to wartime like levels) so that the transition can be made and the necessary mitigations put in place. The investment required to overcome the varios bottlenecks is mindboggling.

It isn't going to happen.

I still congratulate new parents but feel more and more of a hypocrite when I do 

[Admiral Yi]

I think we should massively increase taxes on carbon, regardless of who is using it.

[Jacob]

What happens if we massively increase taxes on carbon in the West, but China, India, and the global South does not?

[Admiral Yi]

What happens if we massively increase taxes on carbon in the West, but China, India, and the global South does not?

This sounds like a rhetorical question.

[Jacob]

What happens if we massively increase taxes on carbon in the West, but China, India, and the global South does not?

This sounds like a rhetorical question.

It's not intended to be.

I'm wondering what the economic and power political consequences would be of such a policy. I have a gut instinct that it'll be a tragedy of the commons type situation where the West would just be shooting ourselves in the foot economically (and perhaps in other ways as well), but it's at best a shallowly considered hunch... so if anyone has reasoned about it a bit more thoroughly I'd love to hear about it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

What happens if we massively increase taxes on carbon in the West, but China, India, and the global South does not?

This is a huge part of the problem. I checked earlier and the UK is responsible for 0.89% of world greenhouse gas emissions and just over 3% of world income; so essentially irrelevant.

At the moment we are concentrating on reducing our own emissions, but have already plucked most of the low-hanging fruit, meanwhile India and China continue to increase emissions. I think that if we spent £1bn on helping developing nations to reduce their emissions we would get a far greater reduction in emissions than trying to get further reductions here. Come to that I see Greece gets about half of its electricity from lignite, helping them get that down is probably far more effective than further incremental improvements here in the UK itself.

I do believe this sort of engagement is politically impossible though 

[Josquius]

Careful with the UK is only 1% so doesn't matter thing. I always see people bringing that one out as an excuse to do whatever they want.
The UK is only 1% but there's a lot of small percent countries out there and it does add up.

Would be nice though if we could price green energy into our imports. Serves multiple purposes as well as the climate one. Living more sustainably means less imports of Chinese crap, a new shirt every week, etc...

India is the big problem. China is doing pretty well with regards to renewable energy I hear-albeit less so for their local environment.

Agreed on spending more money on international aid but... Well. We know how well that goes down. 

I am optimistic the worst scenarios won't be hit. But this is something that needs action and won't just magically happen.
Hopefully by the end of the century we can get some sun shade satellites in place to bring snow back to the world.

[Tamas]

Not to add to the "why we shouldn't try to fix this" pile, but the very obvious problem with financing green programs in third world shitholes is that very likely most of the money would be syphoned off in those political climates. To some degree this is inevitable in such programs/efforts and should be tolerated as "leakage" but on the scale required for this it could help cement/create some awful regimes. Prime example is of course Hungary, where a neo-feudal kingdom has been built largely on EU grants channeled into pointless and half-finished projects so the vassals can steal most of it, and then channel it back into the power-maintenance machine such as the media.

I am afraid the drastic change we'd need would require what a similarly drastic change, namely the industrialisation of Soviet Russia required. And of course once you give people that kind of power it seldom ends well or efficiently.

It's a mess. As I said in the other thread, either we (mostly science) come up with some sort of a solution that it makes reducing emissions the comfortable and/or profitable choice, or we are in deep shit.

[crazy canuck]

I agree with Tamas, the answer is going to be making green tech the economically smart option.

But that is exactly why rich countries, and especially those of us who only contribute a small percentage to overall green house emission, need to invest heavily in innovating.  If we don't do it, it won't get done. 

And of course the best way to innovate in our economic system is by government creating the necessary incentives.  Government has limited the ways to do that.  The most obvious are the ones being used - taxation and research grants.

Those who think this will get done in time without significant government intervention are part of the problem. There needs to be significant public support in order for policies a to act.

[Sheilbh]

It's not intended to be.

I'm wondering what the economic and power political consequences would be of such a policy. I have a gut instinct that it'll be a tragedy of the commons type situation where the West would just be shooting ourselves in the foot economically (and perhaps in other ways as well), but it's at best a shallowly considered hunch... so if anyone has reasoned about it a bit more thoroughly I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah. This is in some ways the big split between the US and EU.

The big reason the US is investing masses of money in green tech isn't just climate it's because China has built up an enormously dominant manufacturing position in those areas. And while it's really reductive, the 19th century of coal was dominated by the countries able to exploit easy coal revenues; the 20th century was the century of oil  and clash of Russia and the US, the world's two largest oil producers. China having a hugely dominant position in the manufacturing and supply chains for the production of green energy presents a big risk. I also think that's why the US is likely to have shifted on this permanently - because it's not about the climate, it's about national security and competition with China.

The only big player taking Yi's approach is currently the EU for various reasons. My own view is that it is the wrong approach though I have some sympathy with some of their problems with any alternative. I think it is fair to say on this that the EU isn't a geopolitical actor and isn't going to become one, in part because it is (currently) unable to think of anything but the liberal solution of mainly carbon pricing.

And I think the big reality behind all of this is that in your scenario - and in reality - the key is what China and India do. In my view their current cliimate policies are not primarily driven by concerns about trade with the West or Western governments but beccause they're both countries who are incredibly exposed to climate events (we've seen that this year in both countries) but also have a need to significantly grow their economy. I think whatever the West does how China and India deal with that - and if there's an exportable model - is effectively where history's going to be made on climate. Not in Western debates about carbon pricing or subsidies - there is still stuff we need to do and it's not about washing our hands. But I think the way we talk about and understand climate could do with a bit more humility: we aren't the agents anymore, we will experience history made elsewhere. Needlesss to say I don't think either China or India are following the carbon pricing v moderate subsidy regime models - that's not the driver in China installing more solar generation last year than has been installed in Germany ever

And I'm not sure they should look at those Western debates - in part because I think the question is at different stages. They're both basically how do we decouple economic growth from carbon emissions - but the difference is that for the West we're looking at that from the position where we're already wealthy, for China, India and most of the world it's how do they decouple it while rapidly growing their economies to provide their citizens with better lives. I'm not sure carbon pricing v WTO compliant subsidy regime is going to be the answer for them.

[Gups]

I'm a big fan of carbon taxes as well bt it feels like the moment has passed for them.

Agree innovation and investment is key. This isn't just about emissions - abundant, cheap energy will be transformative worldwide.

[mongers]

Whatever happend with green policies now, 'we've' missed the boat, humanity* is approaching the cliff edge, no thanks to 20-30 years of prevarication and meaningless 2050 targests; time now for active management of the climate, A-bombs and volcanoes anyone?

Though the surface sea temperatures data is rather worrying.


* humans as a species aren't in danger, we'll alway survive short of a killer asteroid, but the compassion without our societies will mostly get thrown on the bonfire as awealthy minority strive to still dominate amidst the ashes. 

[Sheilbh]

I'm a big fan of carbon taxes as well bt it feels like the moment has passed for them.

Agree innovation and investment is key. This isn't just about emissions - abundant, cheap energy will be transformative worldwide.

Also there is a big adaptation cost - as the mean increases so do the extremes and everything is designed to operate within certain tolerances.

That's been a factor in Sicily for example where there's wildfires but there's simultaneously cities that have lost power for 48 hours plus because the cables under the roads have melted. They're simply not designed to survive the level of heat that Sicily has seen in this heatwave. Or in the Indian floods where you've had lots of knock on effects.

I think we are beyond the point where carbon pricing or just not building is enough. It's now about electrifying everything, adapting our infrastructure so that it can keep working in the climate of the 21st century. I don't think it's just about the emissions in what we consume any more.