A Global Carbon Credit Trading System was almost a footnote at COP28 this year.
However this is a big deal, at last a global price (of sorts) on carbon pollution.
Carbon credits are financial instruments that attribute present value to potential future carbon capture. However, since the urgent need is to reduce now, such instruments merely shift the burden to the future, offering little real benefit—just financial sleight of hand. https://www.somo.nl/facing-the-facts-carbon-offsets-unmasked/
All of these alternatives require governments to want to make changes, and most electorates still don’t seem to rate this issue highly enough to make it a major deciding factor at elections—possibly due to lack of choice, as so few parties make genuinely bold commitments to immediate action.
Why don't they rate it highly enough? Do you think that is an immutable state? Don't blame the people when the systems that are supposed to educate, to signal what's important are not doing their job. This is greed, privilege, cowardess. It's a choice by those with power. They believe they're immune
No one is blaming the people.
Its going to be 'hard' (euphemism) convincing people to vote primarily for mitigations for CC when
1/ they can't afford to pay rent/food
2/ the main parties don't offer serious / any mitigations & no one has heard of Jill Stein.
“Blame” isn’t useful. We need change, and people change based on incentives. Governments are incentivised by retaining power and backhanders from lobbyists. So they’ll only take it seriously if the electorate really force them, and much of the electorate has more immediate existential concerns.
With respect, if two people both apparently misunderstood your point, perhaps it could be more clearly stated? You appear to be blaming the greed and timidity of the ruling class, and insufficiency of education—but the electorate themselves must drive changes in those things. Nobody else will.
A democracy relies on the population to some extent figuring out for themselves what’s in their own best interest, otherwise they’re susceptible to being mislead by their government, and suddenly there whole system is functionally indistinguishable from an autocracy.
There’s no blame here, this is just an observation of how the system is set up. So barring drastic changes in our whole political system, we need parties to (1) step up and improve people’s lives so they can even consider higher order concerns, and (2) show some backbone against lobbying.
Sadly, our major parties are wholly unable to do either of these things effectively, because they invest most of their energy in personal advancement and petty squabbling. I don’t have a clever answer for you, but if we can’t find one, things won’t change fast enough.
Plenty of commitments to future targets going around, of course, but no concrete binding intermediate milestones in the short-term. It’s all very well promising 80% EVs by 2030, for example, but we all know that can just be withdrawn if it looks like it’ll impose hardship on people.
How can anyone say 80% Evs by 2030 unless every current car owner can afford one
Maybe hire them out on demand and delivered to your door or something very cheaply 🤷🏼♀️ ok scrap that just thinking out loud
Used EV’s are becoming affordable and are more reliable than old clunker ICE cars that start destroying themselves as soon as they first growl to life. Cheaper new EV’s are launching but we actually need to use cars less and make mass transit, clean, affordable, easily accessible and safe.
Cheaper, yes, but not fast enough. If the UK follow the US and EU with tariffs on Chinese EVs, it’ll make this problem worse and protect inefficient manufacturers from competition.
Agreed we also need much more support for cycling and mass transit, but the UK’s record on this has long been poor.
You are right, it has been poor. Public transport in the UK never recovered from Thatchers fire sale. I lived in a very rural area back then and the rural buses disappeared within months despite Thatchers empty reassurances.
I suspect the government will either just back out closer to the time, blaming “economic challenges” or the like; or they’ll just set financial penalties for any dealership which doesn’t sell in that ratio, and leave people to deal with the consequences.
Yes, I think there’s a great deal of truth in this, and clearly that assumption bears no scrutiny—you never get something for nothing. Perhaps the problem is that rapid technological progress created an expectation of a never-ending free lunch, but there’s always a price to pay—see: climate crisis.
IMO the only way they could make it work would be to slash import duties on cheap Chinese EVs (legitimate concerns with this, but it’s pragmatic for now), and selective financial assistance, such as interest free car loans to low income families, perhaps.
Sadly the reality is that they’re removing financial incentives for EV ownership, not adding them. This communicates far clearer than any manifesto pledge that they have absolutely no ambition to achieve their own targets, unless it’s at great expense to the public. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vehicle-tax-for-electric-and-low-emissions-vehicles
Does a nation like India with a thriving economy, a space program and some of the wealthiest people in the world really need international aid to achieve climate reduction targets ? Such anomalies really do not help.
They have those things, but large numbers of people in the country still live in abject destitution, or work long hours for pitifully low wages. That's more a sign of how corrupt and indifferent their ruling class are than a signal that they are now fully developed.
I suspect that is more of the ruling classes not prioritizing their funds to meet the needs of the people. If the rest of the world gives them money to tackle climate change, we are in a way supporting that bad governance.
Comments
However this is a big deal, at last a global price (of sorts) on carbon pollution.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/cop29-agrees-deal-kick-start-global-carbon-credit-trading-2024-11-23/
https://www.somo.nl/facing-the-facts-carbon-offsets-unmasked/
They will claim sovereignty.
That’s why I think the fight should be done also on the “sovereignty” virus, of which we have no immunity in Britain as well…
Its going to be 'hard' (euphemism) convincing people to vote primarily for mitigations for CC when
1/ they can't afford to pay rent/food
2/ the main parties don't offer serious / any mitigations & no one has heard of Jill Stein.
Maybe hire them out on demand and delivered to your door or something very cheaply 🤷🏼♀️ ok scrap that just thinking out loud
Agreed we also need much more support for cycling and mass transit, but the UK’s record on this has long been poor.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vehicle-tax-for-electric-and-low-emissions-vehicles
Also, by 2030 there will be a robust secondary market that will allow more people to switch to an EV.