Berlin: 50.000 Euro pro gesparte Tonne CO2

• „In the trendier parts of Berlin, cargo bikes are the rage. (…) Because they cut carbon-dioxide emissions, local authorities are subsidising the craze. But the well-intentioned schemes look pricey when you consider how much carbon is abated. One such scheme costs the city €370,000 ($450,000), but is expected to reduce emissions by only seven tonnes a year. That works out at over €50,000 per tonne abated. The equivalent figure for schemes that support the sale of low-carbon heating systems, by contrast, is €200 per tonne.“ – bto: aber das ist doch nicht sexy und sichtbar! Besser 50.000 Euro pro Tonne ausgeben, was ja egal ist, kommt doch das Geld aus Bayern und Baden-Württemberg. Und generell ist alles gut, was die Wirtschaft schwächt, dient es doch dem eigentlichen Ziel, dem Systemwandel.
• „That raises an important question: what is the cheapest way to cut carbon?“ – bto: diese Frage zu stellen, ist in Deutschland bereits unzulässig. So kann nur ein kleingeistiger Klimaleugner argumentieren. Es geht doch um ein so wichtiges Ziel, da kann man doch gar nicht anders als alles probieren, koste es was es wolle….. 
• „One way to discern the answer is to impose a price on carbon, either as a tax or a cap-and-trade scheme. This would encourage firms and consumers to find the cheapest ways to abate. But setting a price is difficult politically. Only a fifth of the world’s emissions are covered by an explicit price. Even in Europe, the world’s biggest liquid carbon market, free credits still allow many industries to maintain emissions.“ – bto: es ist also politisches Versagen, was dazu führt, dass wir teure, ineffiziente und ineffective Maßnahmen ergreifen.
• „(…) Bill Gates suggests using a “green premium”, or the gap between the price of clean activities and dirty ones, as a guide. Where the premium is low, zero-carbon alternatives exist, and consumers have no reason not to use them. Where the premium is high, more innovation is needed.“ – bto: also ist es ein Indiktor für die Allokation von Forschungsgeldern.
• „A similar approach, popular in climate circles for the past decade or so, is to consider the marginal costs of abatement. Like green premiums, these compute the costs of a climate intervention (including operating costs and upfront spending). But it compares them with the emissions that the policy is expected to abate. Plotting the costs and emissions abated on a curve shows the policies that provide the most bang for the buck (see chart 1).“ – bto: das Bild ist beeindruckend und past zum intuitiven Eindruck: Elektromobilität ist sehr teuer im Vergleich zu anderen Technologien.

Quelle: Economist

• „(…) the biggest bang comes from making buildings more energy-efficient, say by installing insulation or smart cooling and heating systems. Often these have negative costs: analysts think they will eventually save consumers money through cheaper bills.“ – bto: nun könnte man ja meinen, hier würde der politische Fokus liegen. Dem ist aber nicht so.
• “(…) the most expensive areas of the economy to decarbonise tend to be transport (planes and ships), heavy industry (steel and cement) and agriculture (cows belching methane). In these cases clean, cheap, scalable alternatives do not yet exist.“ – bto: daher auch die Vorstellung hier über Verzicht zu arbeiten. Keine Autos mehr, kein Flugverkehr, kein Fleischkonsum.
• Natürlich sind das Schätzungen. So werden die Kosten je nach Standort schwanken, ebenso die Erträge von erneuerbaren Energien. (…) The International Energy Agency (iea), for instance, has routinely underestimated the pace of deployment of renewables. And because economies of scale drive down prices, that means it has overestimated the costs of switching, too. In 2010 the lowest the iea expected solar prices to drop to over the next decade was about $195 per megawatt hour. Today the price in America and Europe is $30-60 (see chart 3).“ – bto: was übrigens wieder unterstreicht, dass es im technologischen Fortschritt die Lösung geben kann und wird.
• Beispiel Wasserstoff, der heute nur selten ohne Emissionen hergestellt werden kann. „(but) if it were, the Hydrogen Council reckons, it could be used in 35 different green applications, from storing energy to heating buildings. Ignoring this could lead to underinvestment in hydrogen power today.“ – bto: was dennoch die Frage aufwirft, ob wir das mit hohen Steuern und Abgaben finanzieren und das Geschäft damit dann die anderen machen?
• “Interactions also affect how much interventions reduce emissions. Consider two things needed to decarbonise the economy: converting the grid to low-carbon power, and electrifying transport. The order in which you do these matters. According to a model developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and others, if transport were electrified, there would be less demand for oil to fill tanks with petrol. Yet, as the demand for dirty power for electricity would surge, overall emissions would drop by only 2% by 2050 (compared with a business-as-usual baseline). If the grid were cleaned up first, though, then emissions would fall by about 30%.“ – bto: was nun allerdings genau nicht dem entspricht, was gerade mit viel Geld gefördert wird.
• „This type of analysis lets you sort climate actions into three categories, says Jesse Jenkins of Princeton University, all of which require funding. The first are what he calls “robust” interventions, such as improving energy efficiency, which are valuable across lots of scenarios. Next come “shaping” interventions, such as investing in hydrogen and batteries, which improve the likelihood of arriving at a low-carbon future. Then come “hedging” strategies: long-shot options to develop, just in case, such as direct-air-capture, which sucks carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The result is a more complex framework better suited to deal with the complex, ever more urgent task of decarbonisation.“ – bto: vor allem ist es eine Vorgehensweise die die Chance hat, die Gesellschaft nicht zu überfordern. Anders auf jeden Fall als der Berliner Weg…