Yes, quite!

There are worse sins, but there are also more interesting takes in Works in Progress, eg the articles they've done on housing.

Works in Progress is a journal for clever right wing think tank types, and always has been. Obviously, they're always going to argue for looser labour laws.

About 15% of the land area is forested. It used to be more like two thirds.

What are you *talking* about? The balance of costs between Ethiopians as taxpayers and Ethiopians as consumers is completely irrelevant to whether it’s expensive for Ethiopians to import fuel. Obviously. It doesn’t become magically costless for Ethiopians if the government stops subsidizing it, it just gets carried as a cost by everyone who’s reliant on fuel, which isthe entire Ethiopian population, the same payee basis as for tax. Sheesh.

If we’re going to get all technical about it, a boom is an economic term referring to a period of high and growing economic activity. It’s not a technical economic term for a growth in a particular product’s sales. So I have no idea what you think you’re quoting with you reference to “generally driven by high consumer confidence”, but that’s almost certainly a snippet from a definition of a technical term that doesn’t apply to this more prosaic use of the term.

People are harrumphing about government intervention blah blah blah etc. But I think what’s really going on is that they are made uneasy by the notion that there are governments and consumers out there who do not think like them, who have completely different motivations, and who do not give two hoots about ICE for the sake of ICE, because they do not share the emotional commitment to ICE. It’s the sicky feeling you get when you realise that how you conceived of the world isn’t as universal as you once thought it was. They can pull the protectionist blanket round America and continue with fossil fuels there, but the rest of the world isn’t going to sit by, other countries are going to make different decisions that are in their interests.

I will wager that Ethiopians travel in vehicles quite a lot, largely shared minibuses, and ICE minibuses are prone to breaking down in a way that EV minibuses won’t, so Ethiopians will find the greater reliability an important benefit of this transition. The article describes the expansion of EV minibuses as an assembly activity in the country

If you actually read the article instead of just pontificating from a position of ignorance, you’ll find a perfectly straightforward explanation of the policy shift. In the olden days, the only choice for a car was for it to be an ICE car. But that cost the government a lot of money, because Ethiopia had to import the fuel. But it’s not the olden days any more. Ethiopia has a big shiny dam and a surplus of electricity, and EVs are relatively cheaper, so it improves the country’s finances considerably to prefer the drivetrain that uses the cheap homegrown elecricity instead of the expensive imported fuel.

As this exact discussion shows, implicit subsidies are a right wing idiot’s way of pretending that negative externalities aren’t a real thing, despite them being a completely standard part of economics. Morbidity and mortality associated with respiratory-caused AD has a very real cost, and we all have to bear it, when polluters should pay it.

Don’t be a dumbass. The repeals of the regulations for the endangerment finding directly shift incentives from activities that generate relatively lower quantities of PM2.5, such as the use of EVs and renewables, to activities that generate relatively much higher quantities, such as the use of big ICE vehicles and fossil fuel power generation.

And even then, solar is going in everywhere because of grid reliability being poor and costing a lot. Diesel gensets are out, solar & batteries are in

Two and three wheelers are undoubtedly a huge source, and they are being electrified pretty rapidly, because they are able to be produced at low enough costs to be compelling replacements even in the Indian market.

https://micromobility.io/news/...

On that list, solar helps with about half of it:
Solar helps with:
wood-burning fires
cow-dung cake combustion
diesel generator exhaust
thermal power plants
cooling tower mist emissions

Solar & EVs help with motor vehicles, too

Yes, plenty of other measures required, but the rapid rollout of solar in India, which is well underway, will help substantially

it compares Indian’s response to China’s. China is not good, but is miles better

https://youtu.be/-VPYbJxPvzY?s...