In a recent article in Nature magazine, well regarded economists have declared the Kyoto protocol as a failure at generating tangible results. Of course, this should have been obvious to all. Without direct technology change, the only way to reduce CO2 emissions is by direct economic contraction.
To date we have had neither. And fantasies that forced CO2 reduction is an option are in dreamland. At most we will get transferrance which is most certainly not reduction. So far transferrance has been to China and India who are even less careful about what is dumped into the environment.
The harsh unrelenting reality remains. We are going to burn most of the extractable oil, gas and coal that we can get our mitts on over the next century. We will work hard at doing it more efficiently, but somehow I do not think that the coal mining industry is laying off its workers anytime soon.
As I have pointed out, the only credible replacement for these high quality fuels is algae based bio fuels. This will become well established over the next fifty years and we will get very good at using it. That will not stop us from pumping cheap oil and mining cheap coal until it is no longer cheap. Only when agriculture can bring the cost of such fuels well below that of fossil fuels, will the fossil fuel economy disappear.
Since we are going to burn it all regardless, our only economic strategy that has any validity is to systematize a global carbon credit economy that starts with a direct global tax of CO2 emission. This is as simple as taxing the fuels directly with absolutely no exceptions. This directly underwrites a carbon credit system. A meaningful dollar value could be $20.00 per ton of carbon contained.
In this way, absolutely no new distortions are introduced that will fuel political manipulation. At the same time, been a true global tax, it will inspire a working forum for tackling other global problems.
This tax will accomplish two things. It will swiftly induce a massive investment in more efficient energy regimes for all participants to remain competitive and will thereby strongly shift investment into better technologies. And secondly it creates a financial carbon credit worth $20.00 per ton for newly sequestered carbon.
I showed you yesterday how easy it will be to use this credit to induce the 2,000,000,000 subsistence farmers to sequester carbon while also upgrading their land. They alone can actually solve the whole problem, or come so close that it is the same thing. After all, with this type of support and land improvement and perhaps a little proper social support, these farmers are no longer subsistence farmers. Go look and see what has happened in China, much as I am sure they complain.
And the absolute beauty of the proposed system, it is dead trivial to audit the process. A ten percent allocation at most for the financial institutions and we will even have enthusiasm at all levels. Of course the crooks will try to divert ninety percent into their pockets while turning the farmers into slaves. Since this is a global system, this may actually be global opportunity to lift the bottom third of the global population out of their difficult circumstances. Certainly this is a new option.
Besides, though it is absolutely critical to get the subsistence farmers on board in order to have the maximum social and economic benefit, it goes without saying that the rest of the global economy which has the available capital to deploy will work overtime to earn their fair share without any further intervention by any government.
To date we have had neither. And fantasies that forced CO2 reduction is an option are in dreamland. At most we will get transferrance which is most certainly not reduction. So far transferrance has been to China and India who are even less careful about what is dumped into the environment.
The harsh unrelenting reality remains. We are going to burn most of the extractable oil, gas and coal that we can get our mitts on over the next century. We will work hard at doing it more efficiently, but somehow I do not think that the coal mining industry is laying off its workers anytime soon.
As I have pointed out, the only credible replacement for these high quality fuels is algae based bio fuels. This will become well established over the next fifty years and we will get very good at using it. That will not stop us from pumping cheap oil and mining cheap coal until it is no longer cheap. Only when agriculture can bring the cost of such fuels well below that of fossil fuels, will the fossil fuel economy disappear.
Since we are going to burn it all regardless, our only economic strategy that has any validity is to systematize a global carbon credit economy that starts with a direct global tax of CO2 emission. This is as simple as taxing the fuels directly with absolutely no exceptions. This directly underwrites a carbon credit system. A meaningful dollar value could be $20.00 per ton of carbon contained.
In this way, absolutely no new distortions are introduced that will fuel political manipulation. At the same time, been a true global tax, it will inspire a working forum for tackling other global problems.
This tax will accomplish two things. It will swiftly induce a massive investment in more efficient energy regimes for all participants to remain competitive and will thereby strongly shift investment into better technologies. And secondly it creates a financial carbon credit worth $20.00 per ton for newly sequestered carbon.
I showed you yesterday how easy it will be to use this credit to induce the 2,000,000,000 subsistence farmers to sequester carbon while also upgrading their land. They alone can actually solve the whole problem, or come so close that it is the same thing. After all, with this type of support and land improvement and perhaps a little proper social support, these farmers are no longer subsistence farmers. Go look and see what has happened in China, much as I am sure they complain.
And the absolute beauty of the proposed system, it is dead trivial to audit the process. A ten percent allocation at most for the financial institutions and we will even have enthusiasm at all levels. Of course the crooks will try to divert ninety percent into their pockets while turning the farmers into slaves. Since this is a global system, this may actually be global opportunity to lift the bottom third of the global population out of their difficult circumstances. Certainly this is a new option.
Besides, though it is absolutely critical to get the subsistence farmers on board in order to have the maximum social and economic benefit, it goes without saying that the rest of the global economy which has the available capital to deploy will work overtime to earn their fair share without any further intervention by any government.
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