this post was submitted on 07 Oct 2024
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It basically says that we need to impose restrictions on both extraction and any kind of commitment to burning.
How are we supposed to do that though? We're talking about BP partnering with the Iraqi government to extract their oil reserves, which then hit the global market. I realize BP brings technology to the deal but it's not exactly rocket science. I'd love to see moratoriums around the world, but that's going to be a bunch of individual countries/jurisdictions making those decisions. Companies are legally required to maximize profit and that means maximizing extraction. Killing the capitalism and making BP a workers co-op probably gets us the same decision, based on the reticence of any workforce to abandon their livelihood.
Here in the US we're at record oil/gas production but half the country thinks we're killing the entire industry. Like I wish we were actually doing that, but instead we just have the IRA (which is great all things considered) but it's mostly industrial policy focused on mostly the right industries for once.
You could, for example, cap total importation & extraction at a national or regional level, and lower that cap each year.
I'm just having trouble imagining the sort of global cooperation required for something like this. It seems significantly more difficult than a carbon tax, which is practically impossible already.
Cap systems like this are about equivalent to carbon taxes in terms of difficulty in cooperating around, but give certainty about total emissions instead of about future prices. They're mostly not implemented because they make it clear that you need to actually decarbonize.
The US wouldn't actually need to cooperate with other countries, the US GHG footprint is huge. Even considering just the US military, such a scheme would make a massive difference.
If implemented US-wide, it would obviously be an issue how you then tax (cheap) imports made with fossil fuels (which incidentally is a question the EU is already pondering) and what to do about your exports. But it should definitely be possible.
That's a fair point. It still seems like focusing on the supply side would just result in higher prices (I'm thinking just oil imports), while enriching other countries that still pump. So money is sent abroad, Americans pay more and are pissed off and are back to being dependent on global markets. Whereas a tax would lower demand in an "artificial" way that keeps the money in the borders to be used on stuff that benefits people, like enabling the transition itself. Taxes are simple and they work. I imagine we'd have to be basically off oil already before moratoriums would be feasible politically. Gas is a bit different than oil because it's not really a global market, but I'm no expert on this stuff. I just want to the fossil fuels to stay in the ground one way or another.
If we imposed a high minimum for extraction and a large storage requirement we could just bankrupt the industry and drive the global prices down to nothing, making extraction not worth it.