"They have a deeply idealist streak, which is in many ways laudable; they seek not just to protect the environment and the climate, but to champion human rights, minority rights, and build a more just society."
That's why they'll fail. Like all idealists, the European Greens have made the perfect the enemy of the good. Climate/energy policy has nothing to do with human rights, minority rights or a just society—whatever those conveniently imprecise terms may mean. Indeed, "saving the planet," to use a slogan popular among the Greens, would probably require human rights to be defined out of existence.
Idealism is fine when you're standing on the sidelines. But once you acquire power, idealism is the entry argument for the dictatorship of the proletariat—if I may be pardoned the Leninism.
On the topic of carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), the term that people working in the field now seem to prefer because it covers non-tax mechanisms as well, readers interested in this issue might find this new paper, "CBAM for the EU: A policy proposal", of interest:
The paper was co-authored by Andrei Marcu, Michael Mehling and Aaron Cosbey. I've known Aaron for a couple of decades now, and I know of nobody who has thought more carefully about CBAMs. He understands both the environmental and trade issues, and has dedicated much of his efforts to finding a way to thread the needle between them. As a communicator on the instrument, he is peerless.
You can get a feel for the tenor of the report's findings from this quote:
"[A]] CBAM is a highly complex instrument, and each design element offers numerous options for implementation that entail multiple trade-offs for the environmental and economic benefits of the measure as well as its technical, legal and political viability. Similarly, the “Sectoral Deep Dive” report highlighted the considerable heterogeneity across relevant sectors in terms of domestic and international production and trading patterns, the drivers of carbon cost and emissions leakage, and the pathways towards deep decarbonization. Not only has this analysis underscored that a CBAM, on its own, cannot offer a comprehensive and uniform solution to address the concerns of all sectors about emissions leakage, but it has also revealed the delicate balancing act required to mitigate the identified trade-offs."
Folks: just to let you know that for some reason, Substack stopped sending me alerts that a comment had been posted, hence my relative inactivity of late. (Stupidly, I had simply assumed that you all had become bored with the topic.)
My comment is on energy policy effecting climate change. I want green energy to be successful, but advocates need to be disciplined and rigorous with regard to math. In the USA Today, many electric cars are powered by energy generated from coal. The numbers on electric car use need to acknowledge that. Of course these numbers can change next year or after as we transition to greener energy. In any serious argument, math will make or break you.
I can't help myself but pointing out that France's low CO2 emission per capita are up to now a result of nuclear who the Greens especially in Germany and Austria especially vehemently oppose. On the other hand I don't doubt the Greens are capable of policy changes and policy successes over time, in fact I think some of the smarter Greens already understand privately the necessity of nuclear power for example. However, I think this shows the Greens still face a very uphill climb towards political success and could very well get bogged down in infighting and in fact go backwards policy and politics wise.
"They have a deeply idealist streak, which is in many ways laudable; they seek not just to protect the environment and the climate, but to champion human rights, minority rights, and build a more just society."
That's why they'll fail. Like all idealists, the European Greens have made the perfect the enemy of the good. Climate/energy policy has nothing to do with human rights, minority rights or a just society—whatever those conveniently imprecise terms may mean. Indeed, "saving the planet," to use a slogan popular among the Greens, would probably require human rights to be defined out of existence.
Idealism is fine when you're standing on the sidelines. But once you acquire power, idealism is the entry argument for the dictatorship of the proletariat—if I may be pardoned the Leninism.
On the topic of carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAMs), the term that people working in the field now seem to prefer because it covers non-tax mechanisms as well, readers interested in this issue might find this new paper, "CBAM for the EU: A policy proposal", of interest:
https://secureservercdn.net/160.153.137.163/z7r.689.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/20210421-Complete-v6-Final.pdf
The paper was co-authored by Andrei Marcu, Michael Mehling and Aaron Cosbey. I've known Aaron for a couple of decades now, and I know of nobody who has thought more carefully about CBAMs. He understands both the environmental and trade issues, and has dedicated much of his efforts to finding a way to thread the needle between them. As a communicator on the instrument, he is peerless.
You can get a feel for the tenor of the report's findings from this quote:
"[A]] CBAM is a highly complex instrument, and each design element offers numerous options for implementation that entail multiple trade-offs for the environmental and economic benefits of the measure as well as its technical, legal and political viability. Similarly, the “Sectoral Deep Dive” report highlighted the considerable heterogeneity across relevant sectors in terms of domestic and international production and trading patterns, the drivers of carbon cost and emissions leakage, and the pathways towards deep decarbonization. Not only has this analysis underscored that a CBAM, on its own, cannot offer a comprehensive and uniform solution to address the concerns of all sectors about emissions leakage, but it has also revealed the delicate balancing act required to mitigate the identified trade-offs."
Folks: just to let you know that for some reason, Substack stopped sending me alerts that a comment had been posted, hence my relative inactivity of late. (Stupidly, I had simply assumed that you all had become bored with the topic.)
My comment is on energy policy effecting climate change. I want green energy to be successful, but advocates need to be disciplined and rigorous with regard to math. In the USA Today, many electric cars are powered by energy generated from coal. The numbers on electric car use need to acknowledge that. Of course these numbers can change next year or after as we transition to greener energy. In any serious argument, math will make or break you.
I can't help myself but pointing out that France's low CO2 emission per capita are up to now a result of nuclear who the Greens especially in Germany and Austria especially vehemently oppose. On the other hand I don't doubt the Greens are capable of policy changes and policy successes over time, in fact I think some of the smarter Greens already understand privately the necessity of nuclear power for example. However, I think this shows the Greens still face a very uphill climb towards political success and could very well get bogged down in infighting and in fact go backwards policy and politics wise.