What has worked to fight climate change? Policies where someone pays for polluting, study finds

In recent years the UK government has had to heavily support people with their energy bills, and still paid the price at the polls for inflation.

The first 5%-10% reduction may be do-able, but costs money. After that it costs an exponentially increasing amount of cash, and becomes much harder to the point where it is not politically or socially feasible to reduce any more. What works on an academic's spreadsheet won't work in real life.

Accept that people are not going to go back to a pre-industrial age. And that if you push too hard, the government gets kicked out. Replace two regimes and the third will be populist and ease up on green requirements.

Humanity is going to cause emissions, so find viable lower-emission alternatives for the things we are doing and subsidise the roll-out of them. Those subsidised Chinese EVs, solar panels and turbines for example. Oh yeah, the USG just surcharged them out of affordability. Kids love electric scooters, so there's good news. No, wait - they are being restricted and banned. Why even bother when politicians pull the rug away like that?

As for manipulating people with higher prices - you are just punishing the poor for being poor. They suffer enough already, and there is a limit to how much punishment they can and will take.

I'm guessing these scientists and academics are all paid enough to be insulated from and oblivious to the effects of their plans on ordinary folk, who don't earn as much as they do.

The climate on earth has never been fixed, it has always been changing.

Irrelevant, that is not what the article is talking about.

Climate change is a natural process.

Good luck trying to fight it.

Again, in the context of the current situation "climate change" do not refer to a natural process but a global disaster proved to be caused by human activity and that scientists agree will have terrible consequences around the globe. Scientists also agree that actions to mitigate the problem are perfectly possible.

You can try, just don't force me to join you.

If your actions have negative consequences for others you can be made responsible for them, people not believing in second hand smoke dangers can still be made to pay fines (or other forms of punishment) if they smoke where it is forbidden.

You can try, just don't force me to join you.

You will pay in the end anyway. You are already paying now, in fact. Just depends on how much you want to pay and whether you calculate you will be dead before the bill gets bigger. But short-term, me-first, addictive thinking is always the stumbling block to effective action.

The only success story in the United States was in transportation. Emissions dropped 8% from 2005 to 2011 thanks to a mix of fuel standards — which amount to regulation — and subsidies.

8% is a success and nothing since 2011?

See USA streets clogged with SUVs and full-sized trucks. This is true USA FREE-dom.

8% is a success and nothing since 2011?

Seems US policymakers don't believe at all in the climate emergency

Far as I know the most significant thing they did that impacts on the issue is levying tariff on Chinese EVs

It's also necessary to discourage fossil fuels by pricing them closer to their full costs, including the costs of the climate damage they cause,” he said.

OK, but then let's also put the pricing of their wild dreams of a green and eco-friendly transition closer to the full costs for our societies. For example we pay more for the fossil fuels if they then pay for our miserable life in the new jobless de-industrialized era. I guess such a deal will make them a bit more silent quickly.

Interesting study, but it may not be everything.

I think it is a difficult problem for our society. We should cooperate with each others to reduce fossil fuels emissions.

IF it is "mother nature doing what mother nature does", when can we expect her to stop? I've never had this question answered. It seems that IF there might be able to curtail her a little, it would be worth the effort. Otherwise, we are all going to die. Maybe, just maybe, this climate isn't mother nature. It's worth the effort to try.