When man first walked on the moon, the carbon dioxide concentration in Earth’s atmosphere was 325 parts per million (ppm).
By 9/11, it was 369 ppm, and when COVID-19 shut down normal life in 2020, it had shot up to 414 parts ppm.
This week, our planet hit the highest levels ever directly recorded: 430 parts per million.
“This problem is not going away, and we’re moving further and further into uncharted territory, and almost certainly, very dangerous territory.”
The problem is these numbers are based on the country of origin of emissions and don’t take into account the demand/consumption that is driving those emissions. China is a huge exporter and the US is a major importer of Chinese goods. US consumption is driving a lot of China’s emissions
By not being a manufacturing economy, we’re able to offset the appearance of our emissions when the data is tracked this way
China is the one choosing coal to fuel it’s exports. It’s the government that has to change policy.
This is one place where tariffs are reasonable policy. Coal costs less than renewables but has a higher environmental cost. Products made using coal energy cost less because of this externalization/excess environmental cost. Tariff can be set to account for the environmental cost making goods produced with renewables price competitive with those produced with coal.
Yup. Also the whole reason China produces the majority of the rare earths isn’t because there’s some cave that only exists in China they come from. It’s because processing rare earths involves toxic waste and it’s cheaper to do it when you’re willing to just dump the toxic waste on the ground, which is what they do in China.
Environmentally motivated tariffs makes a lot of sense, if companies aren’t gaining a competitive edge by being environmentally irresponsible, they will start being more responsible. Trying to appeal to the morals of corporations isn’t going to get anywhere, there needs to be a financial incentive for them to do things right.