What solutions are you proposing exactly to reverse climate change? The trillions in investment so far in clean energy have yielded minimal results. What specifically are you recommending?
If renewables did get trillions in investment this far, a reference would be nice, it wouldn't touch the subsidies fossil fuels receive annually at $5.3tn[0].
Accounting for environmental damage is important, but if you calculate the subsidies like that, it isn't just the energy industry that gets subsidized (as would largely be the case with renewables), it's the consumers using the energy (they receive most of such subsidies).
So just to be clear: The $5.3 trillion is arrived at by counting untaxed environmental harm as a subsidy. Which I think it is interesting to consider the damage, but I don't think that is what people are going to think when they think energy subsidy.
No, this really is a subsidy to the fossil fuel industry: the amount they pay to obtain fossil fuels is less than the actual cost, which means they can sell them for prices which would be unprofitable if they paid for the environmental costs and for applications where they'd otherwise be replaced by other more environmentally-friendly options. The consumers definitely aren't the ones who are being subsidised here - they don't care where their energy is coming from, so the actual consumer benefit is only the difference between the cost of fossil fuels and the cost of the cheapest option if fossil fuel producers had to pay the full environmental price, minus the environmental harms to the consumers. (Which may well actually not be a net benefit to consumers at all.)
But consumers would have either had to pay extra for that $5.3 trillion expense, or not use as much energy. Figuring out where the blame should be placed is a bit of chicken and egg, but we're trying to point out that bandying questionable numbers around like this isn't helping the cause.
I think my point still stands in response to his argument, if you ignore post-tax subsidies. The pre-tax sum is $333bn in 2015 and $541bn in 2013. So would easily accumulate to trillions over a short number of years.
But I do think post-tax subsidies is a fair metric, for example, in places where there's state health care, my tax is being spent to care for people whose health has been affected by fossil fuels. So it seems like state subsidised to me.
As I mentioned in my other reply to you (which happened at the same time) revenue neutral carbon tax, or the equivalent righty version which is cap and trade.
But really technology is going to drive this change, as long as the entrenched interests don't prevent the use of renewables that are cheaper than fossil fuels.
Already ideally sited solar and wind are cheaper than coal, and learning curves are pushing that down all the time.
Storage is also getting incredibly cheap, with lithium ion batteries it's around $0.08/kWh right now at the wholesale level.
What we're really going to need is efficient carbon capture schemes though, because the feet-draggers have cost us an extremely valuable 15 years. If we can do capture at something less than $500/ton then I'm starting to feel a bit optimistic that we can head off the worst of it.
But every. Single. Ton. That we emit right now is going to cost out children several times that amount. Improving efficiency of use and increasing the scale and efficiency of the renewable energy manufacturing is a massively important economic development for the US and the world.
The trouble with the idea that technology will drive this change is that it's just driving down the cost of fossil fuels to below the new technologies as countries like Saudi Arabia desperately try and make sure they sell all of their oil. In order to avoid global warming we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground and that's just not in the interest of fossil fuel producers, and because for a lot of those fuels extraction is a tiny portion of the price they can afford to undercut renewables all the way down the cost curve until the pumps run dry or the renewable energy manufacturers give up and go out of business.
Fuel costs are just one part of the infrastructure, as fuels get cheaper, capital costs will dominate. (And they already do for, say, cars where less than half of the per mile costs are for fuel.) At some point I believe the capital costs will be less for renewables than for any fossil fuel based system.
Of course if we were to price in the negative externalities, I think that renewables would already be cheaper. But this is one case where ideology has prevented us from setting up an efficient market for energy.
Except cap and trade programs have done nothing to prevent or curb climate change. Oil companies just buy carbon offsets and continue polluting. Solar still depends on billions in subsidies to be viable, as with many other renewable energy sources. Solar is also extremely inefficient. It costs around 8 times more to output the same energy compared to natural gas for example. We've already invested billions in solar, and we've barely made a dent on solar costs. Oil is very cheap and affordable to the poor, which explains their continued use in the developing world over renewable energy.
What carbon cap and trade programs? Is your contention that a cap and trade program could t reduce emissions? If it can't, then it's not a cap and trade program.
Your pricing information on renewables is out of date, and quickly becoming more out of date.
The renewable industry is changing fast, traditional energy industry changes slow. Those dinosaurs won't know what's hit them until it's too late.
Not 100% sure about this, but if you rely only on a pure market approach, then oil & coal will become cheaper & cheaper while they become less popular. Their demand will drop & so the price will go down.
The reality is that we must put an human mandated limit on the amount of carbon fuels to burn.
Think of it another way: If burning carbon fuels causes major instability in the climate, then the fate of the human race should not be determined by the amount of carbon in the ground. It should be determined by humans being determined.
Higher prices on carbon fuels would be the simplest solution. Cap and trade works. It's not perfect but it works. Creating property rights for the sky lets markets do their magic.
"A 2003 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) study found that the Acid Rain Program accounted for the largest quantified human health benefits of any major federal regulatory program implemented in the last 10 years, with benefits exceeding costs by more than 40:1."
