You buy some piece of land, or (as per TFA) lease it for 30 years. Then, you do nothing with it.
On the basis of you having the potential of doing something with it, you calculate a hypothetical difference in "potential scope of hypothetical activity" somehow denominated in the CO2 unit. The exact procedure for doing this is neither known, reproducible, nor audited?
This purely fictional "measure" (for lack of a better term) is then renamed to "credits" and converted to some monetary unit, like, say USD. The exchange rate is then what? And why?
Last, you sell - as in actually sell - this purely fictional nothingness to states and big corporations who all have multiple economists and/or scientists employed. Plus ample access to external specialists if their own capacities should somehow need a reality check...
Is it me, or does this seem a bit weird (to put it politely)?
Yes this is weird and also may be exactly what we need to do.
Here’s a few politicians from various countries explaining, basically, ”Look we need to develop. If you need us not to cut down the jungle, you should pay. The economic activity needs to come from somewhere. We can’t live in poverty forever”
I'm from Brazil, a developing country. Sometimes I express here on HN the fact I'd burn down the entire Amazon jungle if doing that would give us enough industrial strength to rival the USA and China. That jungle just doesn't matter to me. If you handed me a button that burned down the entire Amazon and told me Brazil would be the most prosperous nation on earth if I pushed it, I wouldn't even think twice.
Usually I just get downvoted until my post is white but someone once replied with an interesting proposition: paying me not to do it. I just laughed it off because it seemed completely insane to me. Why would they pay off a developing country not to develop itself?
And now I come across this thread and it seems these people are doing exactly that. Why our president isn't jumping at that chance is beyond me.
You shouldn't be downvoted, IMHO. In fact, you pose a really interesting question, and also challenge, to the rest of the world.
Your country has a resource, it could monetize it, the rest of the world should incentivize you to NOT cut down the forest, in order to have a better Earth.
And I'm sure somewhere else, there's a person in their 60s in the US who'd push a button that made all life on earth that uses sexual reproduction infertile and unable to continue past the current generation if it meant they got to live a rich western life for their remaining years.
I don't think the notion that humans are self-interested is particular surprising. It's more notable when we are not.
Im sorry but isn’t this actually good? As Africa, parts of Asia and South America become more populated and strive for better quality of life, the last of the big forests are already at risk. If these places are incentivized to protect them, it is a net good for everyone.
It's better than doing nothing, but the UAE has more than enough homework regarding carbon emissions reduction. Its per capita footprint is 25t CO2, 75% more than the USA, which itself is 2.5x that of the EU.
Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?)
These stats can be misleading for other reasons as well.
The US and EU have a lot of existing infrastructure, construction of which required enormous amounts of CO2 emissions. Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still).
> Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?)
It's close. Electricity is practically free for citizens, which is why their large homes are key peretualy cool and thoroughly well-lit, like what you'd see in a real estate marketing brochure.
Absolutely nothing that happens anywhere, to anyone, is paid for without selling or burning fossil fuels. Even solar plants reduce the price of electricity, which gives people buying fossil fuel energy the ability to buy more of it.
I don't really think so. I think they're separate issues. If anything, increased warmth, carbon dioxide and water vapor will increase the density of rainforests, ignoring any other emgstive consequences elsewhere around the world. Rainforest conservation and climate change are separate issues, though they overlap in specific ways and circumstances.
Ignoring the source of the funds used for this conservation effort, actively incentivizing rainforest conservation so that real capital is used to that end is a fantastic thing.
So if an acre of rainforest were slated to be "developed" but burning, say, 1 55-gal drum of your favorite hydrocarbon would prevent it, and instead preserve that acre for 5 years, you would be against doing so, because it involves burning fossil fuels? If no, then your statement is untrue.
Just to make sure it's clear to everyone who's commenting about how great this is - in return for UAE paying to protect Liberia's forests, it gets to burn more fossil fuels while claiming to be reducing its carbon output. Not sure whether this is bad news from a climate perspective, but it certainly isn't good news.
This is good. Eventually doing this will probably be too expensive and most players probably will have to find ways to lower emissions (I assume?) and forest remaining forest will become more valuable than the timer that can be extracted from them.
But it's a bit complicated because if you just buy plots then cattle farming will buy different plots. So you need to setup an incentive structure to pay dividends for sitting on undeveloped rain forest
Next: Look at how much of Eastern European forests was clear-cut in the past 5 years due to "battling insects"... Satellite imagery is showing Brazil-like deforestation.
The studies I saw didn't agree with the climate change angle, but bark beetles of various species are absolutely brutal to trees.
What's more, depending on the species, the wood is useless for anything but biomass. The larvae can and will burrow tunnels deep into the trunk which makes the wood unappealing for most uses... So it's not like it is a convenient excuse for loggers to go in and clear cut.
NGO's hate it when a bigger player with more resources eats their cake. Their only recourse, it seems, is to complain about the semantics of how the new kid is punching wrong.
Readit News
You buy some piece of land, or (as per TFA) lease it for 30 years. Then, you do nothing with it.
On the basis of you having the potential of doing something with it, you calculate a hypothetical difference in "potential scope of hypothetical activity" somehow denominated in the CO2 unit. The exact procedure for doing this is neither known, reproducible, nor audited?
This purely fictional "measure" (for lack of a better term) is then renamed to "credits" and converted to some monetary unit, like, say USD. The exchange rate is then what? And why?
Last, you sell - as in actually sell - this purely fictional nothingness to states and big corporations who all have multiple economists and/or scientists employed. Plus ample access to external specialists if their own capacities should somehow need a reality check...
Is it me, or does this seem a bit weird (to put it politely)?
Here’s a few politicians from various countries explaining, basically, ”Look we need to develop. If you need us not to cut down the jungle, you should pay. The economic activity needs to come from somewhere. We can’t live in poverty forever”
https://time.com/6233998/brazil-indonesia-rainforests-climat...
https://news.mongabay.com/2022/11/where-is-the-money-brazil-...
Think of it as money paid for conservation. Then it all makes sense.
It’s great that Liberia has an incentive to conserve its forest. It’s not so great that doing so gives the rest of the world a license to pollute.
...And this payment can be used by the buyers to justify destroying the climate elsewhere, in a more efficient way.
Usually I just get downvoted until my post is white but someone once replied with an interesting proposition: paying me not to do it. I just laughed it off because it seemed completely insane to me. Why would they pay off a developing country not to develop itself?
And now I come across this thread and it seems these people are doing exactly that. Why our president isn't jumping at that chance is beyond me.
Your country has a resource, it could monetize it, the rest of the world should incentivize you to NOT cut down the forest, in order to have a better Earth.
In our modern society, money is inherently tied to survival as it can be traded with resources that helps further the root loop.
We humans, and every other living thing are a competing distributed system because of a limited resource environment.
So if you light up Amazon, Congo and Daintree rainforests to get a massive economic boost. Go for it!
However the question is how much you care about your great great grandchildren? Because they’ll be getting a very shit deal.
If we had another backup planet, I’d be all down for setting shit on fire.
Earth is all we got in the entire 100B light year observable universe as far as we know.
If all of Amazon is lit on fire, that likely explains why we can’t find any intelligent anywhere.
I don't think the notion that humans are self-interested is particular surprising. It's more notable when we are not.
Dead Comment
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita?t...
Plus the UAE is ~10% citizens, 90% migrant foreigners. I'm not sure how per capita footprint of the UAE accounts for that (is a UAE citizen carbon footprint actually 250t CO2...?)
The US and EU have a lot of existing infrastructure, construction of which required enormous amounts of CO2 emissions. Countries that are still building out their infrastructure should be expected to expend more CO2 per capita to catch up. (Modern equipment is more effecient, but still).
It's close. Electricity is practically free for citizens, which is why their large homes are key peretualy cool and thoroughly well-lit, like what you'd see in a real estate marketing brochure.
Ignoring the source of the funds used for this conservation effort, actively incentivizing rainforest conservation so that real capital is used to that end is a fantastic thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
That's a nice euphemism.
The Simple Economics of Saving the Amazon Rain Forest: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/the-simple-economics-of-sav...
But it's a bit complicated because if you just buy plots then cattle farming will buy different plots. So you need to setup an incentive structure to pay dividends for sitting on undeveloped rain forest
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-centraleurope-environment...
The studies I saw didn't agree with the climate change angle, but bark beetles of various species are absolutely brutal to trees.
What's more, depending on the species, the wood is useless for anything but biomass. The larvae can and will burrow tunnels deep into the trunk which makes the wood unappealing for most uses... So it's not like it is a convenient excuse for loggers to go in and clear cut.