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Comment by wcoenen | Hacker News Reader

Which is why mechanisms like carbon tariffs on imports are being designed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_Border_Adjustment_Mecha...

That seems like it could become very messy and open to fraud. The nice thing about carbon tariffs within borders is they would be trivial to implement because there are relatively few targets (oil wells, coal mines, etc).

Most messy problems can't be solved by neat solutions. Without tariffs, countries will be incentivized to use lax emission control as a competitive advantage.

Yeah, you're right. We should just give up.

Do you think the natural game theoretic result might be "carbon havens"?

Areas that have the worst carbon enforcement / corruption (so issuing certificates to avoid tariffs etc without real action) would be more competitive than areas with effective enforcement so they will attract the most manufacturing.

I don't think importing from countries without a carbon price will be a problem (border taxes seem like they can work).

I suspect the problem will be that for countries that DO set a carbon price it is in everyone's interest within that country that the system not actually be effective.

If high levels of fraud are detected other countries can just slap high "emergency" tarriffs until the country fixes the problem. This would most certainly disincentivize lax enforcement.

The problem has always been lack of a will, not a way.

Perhaps this can work as strategic arms limitation treaties: trust but verify.

Satellite monitoring is almost at the point where an individual country may be held accountable for emissions from their territory.

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