Comment Re:A wake up call (Score 1) 313
So why are you for government funded stuff when e.g. germany clearly shows the industry and society can handle it alone?
Germany's energy sector is extensively subsidized, directly, through tax breaks, and through price controls. I think those subsidies are bad policy:
I'm for some "government funded stuff", namely when it makes economic sense. That's either because it produces a public good, or because it accounts for some externality, or because it compensates for other government interference (like, for example, patents and subsidies on fossil fuels) that politically can't be eliminated by other means.
Why do you care about global CO2 certification trade or emission limits? It costs you nothing. You should not care at all. But you believe it is somehow bad?
First, until low-GHG energy is as cheap as oil and coal, imposing emission limits must necessarily cause prices to go up, and that makes me poorer. Once low-GHG energy is as cheap as oil and coal, you don't need emission limits because producers and consumers will switch voluntarily.
Second, in order for trading or emission limits to be meaningful, they would have to be global and uniform. They can't be based on population or historical usage, they'd have to be structured like a global auction for a limited number of carbon credits. If you don't do it that way, GHG-intensive production will simply move to countries outside the regime. But China isn't going to agree to that, and it would be economic suicide for lots of other nations. So, certificates and carbon trading as proposed by all the protocols to date amount to nothing more than corporate welfare and international financial aid, but often to corporations and nations that don't even need it.