‘Polluters must pay’: UN chief calls for windfall tax on fossil fuel companies
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
As recent as a year ago German politicians were trying to convince that natural gas(from Russia) is a relatively clean energy. Germany was invested in Nord Stream 2 and looks like wanted to be a gatekeeper of Russian gas to Europe. Now Europe is facing a painful reconciliation with reality, that they will have to either hurt their economy, freeze a little their population in the upcoming winter, which is gonna cost them politically or sleep with the devil.
Most of that production is to US and Europe consumers. If you want to punish China for this, simply not buy any lithium-based products such as laptops, cell phones, electric cars.
This is such a tiresome argument. The West has mandated that we all buy EVs in the near future, while labour and environmental laws mean that it is basically impossible to manufacture them here. It's also relatively essential to buy laptops, computers, monitors, etc - all of which are not possible to make in the West.
It is 100% hypocritical to say that we are too conscientious to manufacture electronic goods in our own countries, while importing huge numbers of them from countries that we know are doing horrible things to their people and environment.
The only way to level the playing field is to impose an "environmental duty" on imported goods from places with lower environmental standards. Otherwise, all we are doing is transferring manufacture to countries with lower standards while pretending that we're doing something great for the world.
Yes. Most nations are moving towards carbon tariffs to punish the nations that don't do their share. Though China already has a carbon tax, so their batteries might become even cheaper relative to American ones as a result. Russia will be hit hard by it if they don't change course soon too.
See: How the US is preparing for the EU carbon tariffs:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-u-s-is-pr...
I imagine you’ll find plenty of people who _also_ want pressure on China to improve, but the western world can’t simply absolve ourselves of the problem we created either.
Probably just importing stuff from those nations will be required to drop the US carbon intensity further, especially if they don't start catching up with China in renewable rollout. The recent IRA is a step in the right direction but the US doesn't seem to have the political stability required for long term planning, so it could go either way.
Different story if you calculate C02 consumption (instead of production) per capita.
People in China are making products for American and Western Europe consumers. Ultimately, most of the responsibility should be in consumers, rather than producers.
Stop buying things made in China. Ask your representatives to disallow importing from China.
I have heard some leaders speak who understand the issue of incentives (it isn't rocket science) but I am curious how this was done in the past (e.g. WW2). I recall reading top tax rates being in the 80% range.
This line is getting very tired. How is 'we got rid of net capacity' a problem with renewables? If I get rid of my 10kW gas furnace and replace it with a 1kW heat pump that consumes 300W, it has nothing to do with an 'insufficiency' of heat pumps when I freeze to death.