It takes Megan McArdle a while to get to her point about carbon tariffs in her most recent Washington Post column but she does eventually:
We will never solve climate change if our policy remains largely focused on persuading or forcing Americans to consume less stuff. Environmental asceticism clearly has very limited political appeal in this country, and it will have even less abroad for consumers eager to attain lifestyles Americans take for granted.
What’s necessary is a way to live just as lavishly as we do now while producing a tiny fraction of our current emissions. The only thing that will persuade developing countries to skip the coal plants and the gasoline engines and all the rest is green alternatives that are cheaper and better without the elaborate system of taxes, subsidies and mandates that rich-world governments are using to herd their population toward carbon reduction.
What she neglects to mention is that she has supported the entire neoliberal agenda, i.e. eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, eliminating tariffs, and so on for more than a decade—back when she was posting on Blogspot as “Jane Galt”. My own view is that imposing tariffs as a strategy for offsetting illegal export subsidies, lack of enforced safety and labor regulations, and so on should be one arrow in our quiver. Others include wind and solar power in some places and for some uses, carbon capture, and nuclear power.
Unlike her I think that government has a role to play as does the private sector.
McArdle: “A broad carbon tax — rather than the hodgepodge of environmental subsidies and mandates we’ve got — is the only way we’re ever going to find low-carbon solutions that emerging markets will willingly adopt. And with China now emitting twice as much as the United States, and growing, we desperately need a global solution.”
I find this nonsensical. Enlightened countries will tax themselves because pricing foreign carbon is too difficult and that is where carbon is increasing the most. Economics is usually all about incentives. What are the incentives here McMegan?
We need a global solution, but what is it? Two of the largest players, the US and EU, see the solution as imposing international standards through tariffs. What’s her realistic international arrangement?
I also think her distinction btw/ taxation and tariffs, in which one is purportedly part of the market and the other is utterly alien to be completely artificial.
It is obvious that the EU and US will try to use carbon taxes on imports to impose their internal environmental and labor policies on China and, to a lessor extent, on India. Whether that works remains to be seen. Both China and India are rapidly building coal-fired power stations. So are the countries of Africa. Coal consumption is rising, and so are carbon dioxide emissions world-wide. US emissions have been falling because of the switch from coal to natural gas, but that switch must be nearing completion.
I do not doubt that emitted carbon dioxide contributes to global warming, but I believe most of the warming since 1850 is simply a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age. Today we are about as warm as in the 1930’s; we are slightly cooler than in the Climate Optimum of the High Middle Ages (think cathedrals); cooler than the period of the Roman expansion; and cooler still than than the Minoan Age.
It is also obvious from a biological viewpoint that the whole of the Earth’s flora and faunae would be better off in a planet somewhat warmer than today. The ideal would be a planet warm enough to permit agricultural in northern Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia.
The Milankovitch Theory of Ice Ages still reigns. We are due for another in a thousand years or so.
The retort that one generally receives is that Europe and the U. S. have larger per capita carbon emissions than China or India which misses a couple of key points:
1) the environment doesn’t care. Only total emissions are important.
2) the U. S. cannot reduce total carbon emissions enough on its own to have any effect
3) they generally overestimate the impact of U. S. “leadership”. Countries will pursue their own best interests regardless of such “leadership”
Back in the late 70’s, prompted by some very cold winters, this was the doom porn being pedaled. Time Magazine even ran a cover “The Coming Ice Age.” Quoting “climate experts,” of course. (Steve once claimed he knew nothing of this scaremongering – heh.) I’ll give anyone three guesses what the proposed solutions were, and the the first two don’t count.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=leonard+nomoy+ce+age+youtube&docid=608032747783216540&mid=89F419C6C22AD37192D089F419C6C22AD37192D0&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
The biggest barrier to carbon tariffs actually doing what they intended (instead of being a boondongle)…. is energy is largely fungible, electricity generated from coal is the same as electricity generated from solar. Its pretty easy for exports from China to say it was made with clean energy sources (so exempted from tariffs) while domestic goods are made with dirty energy without China changing its energy mix at all.
Second is how one defines the “carbon content” of a good will be even more arbitrary then the “country of origin content” rules are today. Its a rabbit hole if one has ever tried to follow an analysis of when electric cars “break even” in terms of carbon emissions has shown
Steve doesn’t tread tabloids but he did look at the Ice age thing. That was in the 70s before the photochemists had figured out to get accurate temperatures at high altitudes so climate science was nascent at best. However, even then the majority of the science literature favored warming. Someone at Time was smart enough to realize that half naked cave girls in furs on a cover would boost sales, but most of us dont really think of Time as a scientific journal, except for Drew apparently. Which explains a lot.
We should keep pushing research on renewables, including nuclear. While Dave claims we have a lot of experience with small nukes because of our military those nukes use highly enriched uranium. There arent many of these small nukes around in a commercial setting. As costs come down China will stop using coal.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/energyinnovation/2020/08/10/plummeting-renewable-energy-battery-prices-mean-china-could-hit-62-clean-power-and-cut-costs-11-by-2030/?sh=4b6cff031519
Steve
Steve
China has more than one reason to use coal including energy independence and employing people. Translation: it will take more than you might think for the Chinese to reduce their use of coal.
There are other reasons. The level of pollution is getting better in China but it is still pretty bad. As people get richer they will want a better environment.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/10/pollutionwatch-air-pollution-in-china-falling-study-shows
Steve