France has agreed to suspend its fuel tax increases. Protest has delivered change. But let's not forget what this tax was supposed to do. It was meant to discourage fuel usage as a green measure. And superficially that has failed.
As someone with strong green leanings that worries me. At another level, it's fairly obvious that this is a problem of sequencing. Those protesting are right to complain when the tax increase is designed to limit their access to travel that is, for many, a basic necessity when there is no viable alternative available. This is the sequencing error: what should have happened, and will have to happen, is that the investment in the replacement technology for those that needed to be made redundant must take place before penal measures to prevent the use of old technology are enacted.
This is why I wrote green quantitative easing. The whole purpose of Green QE is to ensure that the funding is available to ensure that the invetsment in essential climate change technology can take place before it is too late.
Green QE is always available. Why aren't we talking about it?
There is a way to pay for the change we need. The lack of willing to use it is very telling. The political willingness to deliver change clearly does not exist, despite all the posturing, as yet.
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Richard, it’s worth noting that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already pushing a “Green New Deal” even before she has been sworn in, and taken up her position as a Congresswoman.
See https://www.wnyc.org/story/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-big-plan-tackle-climate-change/
Pity Labour didn’t snap this up, and espouse it when it was first hot off the press – a winning (win, win, win – for Labour, Britain and the whole ecosphere, IMO) policy, in my opinion.
Our teams are in touch….
I more than agree. Putting individuals in a position of having living standards stung without progressing to different, greener structures in life is pathetic. I want more than green QE and a change on how we consider return on investment, and abandonment of exclusion as a basic method of making sums work in government and economics.
A classic trial could be done on soil carbon retention and improvement. The eight steps usually asked for as these – in this instance from Tehran University:
1. Stop carbon loss – Protect peatlands through enforcement of regulations against burning and drainage.
2. Promote carbon uptake – Identify and promote best practices for storing carbon in ways suitable to local conditions, including through incorporating crop residues, cover crops, agroforestry, contour farming, terracing, nitrogen-fixing plants, and irrigation.
3. Monitor, report and verify impacts – Track and evaluate interventions with science-based harmonized protocols and standards.
4. Deploy technology – Use high-tech opportunities for faster, cheaper and more accurate monitoring of soil carbon changes.
5. Test strategies – Determine what works in local conditions by using models and a network of field sites.
6. Involve communities – Employ citizen science to collect data and create an open online platform for sharing.
7. Coordinate policies – Integrate soil carbon with national climate commitments to the Paris Agreement and other policies on soil and climate.
8. Provide support – Ensure technical assistance, incentives to farmers, monitoring systems, and carbon taxes to promote widespread implementation.
East to construct and monitor this as a green QE project,
Indeed
But it requires political will
‘Political will’ you say?
It seems as though political will is what is holding us back.
Because the politics we rely on to adjudicate on such matters has been captured by those who contribute to the problem.
I feel that only when water levels are seen to be rising up windows will something be done.
And even then, it depends on whose windows.
It’s sad.
Politicians across the parties seem to recognise that a massive investment is needed across both public services and infrastructure. Green QE and perhaps Universal Basic Infrastructure/Serices provide the framework and ideas for this investment that could be funded by a combination of tax increases, conventional borrowing and QE.
Much of business would benefit from the injection into the economy so just what is holding it back. I see two main factors:
– the grip that the ‘austerity’ framing has on the minds of politicians, the public and the media. The media tend to refer to City economists for opinions who are firmly against. If QE is to be deployed, they are the only ones who should be on the receiving end.
– the influence that the finance world and its allies has on the government and the fear of the ‘markets’. That in spite of their massive failures and self-evident, repeated dishonesty
I wonder what shifted mindsets in the 30s to make Keynesian approaches acceptable? Was the finance sector put firmly back in its box after the great crash? Was it the leadership of a few politicians?
–
Necessity
Coupled with the vision of a few
We seem actually to be on the edge of a Super Grand Solar Minimum. This is making itself felt in the turbulent and unusual weather being experienced not just on Earth but on other local planets too. It’s difficult to think our carbon emissions are making a difference on Mars or Venus… anyhoo, you won’t learn about anything but overheating in the corporate mouthpiece MSM so… https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-global-warming-earth-cooling-media-bias/ and when you’ve digested that, time to get more specific https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/30214-nasa-sees-climate-cooling-trend-thanks-to-low-sun-activity then have a look on Youtube where there’s a ton of stuff. I’ll leave it up to yourselves to decide which are conspiracy theory and which aren’t. I don’t think it matters in this instance as there’s so much evidence already established and alarming conjecture from sound respectable individuals… the Russian woman obviously… then go and buy thermals. I’ve got mine 🙂
A carbon tax can be tax neutral. In fact it should be tax neutral. All of the money that the carbon tax brings in can be offset by reductions in tax paid, especially by those at the lower echelons of society who will be hurt the most by the carbon tax. The purpose of the carbon tax is to adjust relative prices to make the cost of carbon apparent. Then local resources become more advantageous and those that use the least amount of packaging and transportation.
Currently most money is created by banks – but most people still do not understand that. The money that the banks create is primarily used in ways that merely create inflation in assets (housing, arts cars…), benefiting those who hold those assets. Little is used to create value and wealth for the wider economy and society. But most people here know that
However, people have been led to believe that if governments create money instead of banks, we are instantly in the world of Weimar republics or Zimbabwe. There is little understanding that it is all about how governments choose to use the money created and that Green QE could and would be used very differently and with very different results.
So perhaps a first step is to get people to have a better sense of how banks currently create money and how that has negative consequences. Then it can be argued that the same process could be being used in a more responsible and productive way to benefit wider society. Thats going to need a concerted effort to get at the media and leading voices in politics. Currently its mostly the already converted talking to each other
“Green QE is always available. Why aren’t we talking about it?” we do – the bunch in the ECB (& the BoE) don’t. I have a plan to change that but would prefer not to outline it in public forums such as this (never mgive your enemies warning). What follows is an extract from a larger document produced by me/my company on the EU energy transformation. The bit below analyses a speech much lauded by one of the ECBites – Have no idea why people thought it was good – it was not – it was given what is needed – crap.:
On 8th November 2018, Benoît CÅ“uré, a member of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Executive Board, gave a speech in which he said that whether humankind fails or succeeds in keeping the rise in global temperatures within manageable levels, central banks will sooner or later be called upon to act. The speech could have been an opportunity for CÅ“uré to outline what the ECB planned to do. However, it was filled with platitudes and “central-banker speak” coupled to confused thinking. Much of the speech focused on inflation. For example:
“….in particular, if the associated shift in the energy mix changes relative prices to an extent that risks destabilising medium-term inflation expectations.’’
This begs the question, most RES generation in the “right place” is at grid parity. Given this why would it “risk destabilising medium-term inflation expectations”? CÅ“uré revisited renewables later in the speech, in a confused and confusing fashion by implying that electricity costs were somehow or other related to oil costs:
“…the marginal cost of harvesting renewable energy may become considerably lower and more stable than in the current regime, in which changes in the effective supply of oil have been a recurrent source of disruption”.
The strange comments continued:
“German growth in the third quarter is currently projected to have stalled or even contracted, probably largely due to bottlenecks in the testing process under the new Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure”.
The new testing procedures were introduced because German vehicle manufacturers had gamed the system. This leads to the stalling in German cars sales and the ECB thinks this is bad. At least Cœuré recognised that climate change could be very bad:
“Catastrophic climate change could thus test the limits of how far monetary policy can go and, in the extreme, force us to rethink our current policy framework”.
Unfortunately, there is the implication that the ECB will wait until “catastrophic climate change” has started before the current policy framework is re-thought. This has shades of bolting the door after the horse has bolted. There was some reference to the “energy transition” but no details on funding. Finally, CÅ“uré made this comment:
“The ECB, acting within its mandate, can — and should — actively support the transition to a low carbon economy, in two main ways: first, by helping to define the rules of the game ……………. without prejudice to price stability”.
It shows that what matters to the ECB is not addressing climate change or the EU’s energy transition but price stability. Coupled to the previous comment about catastrophic climate change, it is clear that, at the moment, the ECB thinks it can act retro-actively with respect to climate developments. Unfortunately, at that point it will be too late. The ECB still thinks in terms of BAU, when almost every other sector in the EU recognises that BAU is no longer feasible or desirable.
Is it the BREXIT effect?
Even where I work people are consumed by it – it crops up more than ever before.
I’m sure that Theresa & Co will want to save money (rather than print it but you never know) to try to smooth over the consequences of BREXIT. And she’ll need to put money into the economy if she is survive another election and avoid a backlash.