> I think that's an acceptable conclusion. So then, what's next? We need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Current solutions aren't working great, so how do we do it?
In the ideal sense:
- Standardize carbon offset measurements: Proper comparisons can only be made if there's a starting point to work from. Standardizing how much X amount of carbon is offset per action (using only the lower bound to deliberately underestimate the impact of an action) would make it harder to lie about the impacts of said offsets.
- Institute high carbon taxes on coal & coal only. Expect extreme friction from coal lobbies against this, & from environmentalists for not being extreme enough. Use incrementalism as an advantage to separate coal lobbyists from the other fossil fuel giants & reassure the others that they're excluded from this measure, & let them see the can be kicked, but not how far it has been kicked.
- Further subsidize battery & renewable deployments. This MUST be made separate from the next point to reduce political friction.
- Reduce subsidies for fossil fuel explorations & extraction. Lumping this & the above point together makes it much likelier that the lobbies will try stop both measures at once. Don't give them ammunition to do so.
- Subsidize EVs & battery-based home energy storage tech even further. The rollout of cheap solar consequently leads to a worsening of the duck curve, just due to how solar energy is reliant on the sun. Smoothing out the bump from solar into a consistent line via battery tech would reduce stress on the grid for massive ramp-ups & alleviate the need for infra upgrades, which is subject to NIMBYism.
This is just off the top of my head, but the main theme is to chip away at the problem rather than finding the Killer. As tempting as it is to try & find the One Solution, such a breakthrough is heavily reliant on luck, whereas the other more relies on consistent effort than luck itself.
In the ideal sense:
- Standardize carbon offset measurements: Proper comparisons can only be made if there's a starting point to work from. Standardizing how much X amount of carbon is offset per action (using only the lower bound to deliberately underestimate the impact of an action) would make it harder to lie about the impacts of said offsets.
- Institute high carbon taxes on coal & coal only. Expect extreme friction from coal lobbies against this, & from environmentalists for not being extreme enough. Use incrementalism as an advantage to separate coal lobbyists from the other fossil fuel giants & reassure the others that they're excluded from this measure, & let them see the can be kicked, but not how far it has been kicked.
- Further subsidize battery & renewable deployments. This MUST be made separate from the next point to reduce political friction.
- Reduce subsidies for fossil fuel explorations & extraction. Lumping this & the above point together makes it much likelier that the lobbies will try stop both measures at once. Don't give them ammunition to do so.
- Subsidize EVs & battery-based home energy storage tech even further. The rollout of cheap solar consequently leads to a worsening of the duck curve, just due to how solar energy is reliant on the sun. Smoothing out the bump from solar into a consistent line via battery tech would reduce stress on the grid for massive ramp-ups & alleviate the need for infra upgrades, which is subject to NIMBYism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve
This is just off the top of my head, but the main theme is to chip away at the problem rather than finding the Killer. As tempting as it is to try & find the One Solution, such a breakthrough is heavily reliant on luck, whereas the other more relies on consistent effort than luck itself.