Carbon emissions: Cap or trade | Mathematics of Sustainability

As mentioned in other posts, carbon dioxide, an important greenhouse gas measured in ppm has been shown by NASA and other media outlets to have increased steadily measured since the beginning of the industrial revolution in 19th century. NASA’s data (AIRS 2002-2016 times series) displays that in 2005 CO2 emissions were at a level of approximately 375 ppm, and comparing that to the last measure in that set in 2016 CO2 emissions dramatically rose to 425 ppm in mid-tropospheric calculations. Most recently NASA’s GEOS team during the 2020 COVID pandemic tracked a significant decrease in overall CO2 emissions especially during February through about April (13% decrease) and then an uptick in CO2 emissions restarting in the summer months (3% decrease) when people again became mobile. Although changes like these produce positive externalities for the environment, their short term effects shouldn’t be overstated since according to Jessica Merzdorf Evans at NASA’s Goddard space flight center, CO2 can last “for up to a century after it is released.” Luckily, technology for recording disturbances to the CO2 cycles (positive and negative in the economic senses of the word) is becoming more sensitive to every CO2 change from detecting the effects of ‘isolated’ wild fires in California to a global shutdown to carbon emitting cars, not only that but models like AIRS and OCO-2 are putting these seemingly isolated incidents in conversation with one another both in the macro, micro and mini senses of time and space.
While in the short term, it may be humanly impractical to pause the entire global economy one solution that may help reduce carbon emissions is by playing a balancing game with carbon credits. These credits represent one ton of carbon emissions to be ‘removed’ from the atmosphere. Economically, an oversimplified example might look like the following: gardener Riley plants enough plants to take in 2 tons of carbon dioxide per year, which means a factory owner producing 3 tons of carbon per year can purchase Riley’s positive externality of 2 less tons of carbon per year leaving the factory owner responsible for 1 ton of carbon per year in the atmosphere rather than the original 3 tons. Additionally, because Riley now has saved 2 more tons of carbon emissions yearly they might be able to use those credits to plow their land with a tractor emitting 1 ton a year at no additional cost to Riley the gardener. While this innovation is not perfect since carbon credits only work to offset a more significant negative externality, it would seem as if more green projects which work to localize green production would go a long way in the short term to increase the positive externalities to the environment and in the long term for ourselves.

links utilized:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna3228
scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/carbon-dioxide

jpl.nasa.gov/news/emission-reductions-from-pandemic-had-unexpected-effects-on-atmosphere

climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

scitechdaily.com/nasa-makes-first-of-it’s-kind-detection-of-reduced-human-CO2-emissions/

16 thoughts on “Carbon emissions: Cap or trade”

I like how you stressed the importance of the green projects because we are on a ticking clock with the enviroment

16 thoughts on “Carbon emissions: Cap or trade”

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