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Earth Science

Fossil Fuel Producers Must Be Forced To 'Take Back' Carbon, Say Scientists (theguardian.com) 158

Fossil fuel companies should be forced to "take back" the carbon dioxide emitted from their products, handing them direct responsibility for cleaning up the climate, a group of scientists has argued. From a report: The principle that the producer of pollution should pay for its clean-up is established around the world, but has never been applied to the climate crisis. Yet technology to capture and store carbon dioxide underground is advancing, and is now technically feasible, according to Myles Allen, a professor of geosystems science at the University of Oxford.

"The technology exists -- what has always been lacking is effective policy," he said. "The failure has been policy, not technology -- we know how to do this." The companies that profit from extracting fossil fuels -- oil, gas and coal producers around the world -- should be paying for an equivalent quantity of carbon dioxide to be stored geologically as a condition of being allowed to operate, he argued.

Allen is a co-author, along with four other scientists from Oxford, the US and the Netherlands, of a paper published on Thursday in the journal Environmental Research Letters that sets out how such an "extended producer responsibility" could work. Under a "carbon takeback obligation," all fossil fuels extracted or imported into a nation or group of nations would be offset by storing underground an amount of carbon dioxide equivalent to that generated by that fuel. Phased in over time, it could be used to store 100% of emissions by 2050, to help the world reach net zero.

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Fossil Fuel Producers Must Be Forced To 'Take Back' Carbon, Say Scientists

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  • by thejam ( 655457 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:14PM (#63203714)

    This strikes me as a simple deep pockets argument, not an ethical argument. The person guilty of murder is not the knife maker. The person guilty of litter is not the paper maker. The person guilty of releasing carbon dioxide is the person who releases it, not the person who made the food (consumed by animals and humans) or fossil fuels (burned by consumers and coal fired electrical plants).

    • by WoodstockJeff ( 568111 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:19PM (#63203726) Homepage

      This is mostly, "It isn't MY fault!"

      The people saying "blame the producers" aren't proposing that THEY stop using fuels and such, just that someone else needs to pay for "fixing" the problems they come up with.

      • Yes and that cost will carry over to consumers just like all costs are so it will in fact be the people creating the demand for poluting items that pay for the CO2

        This should be obvious unless you're running on ideology rather than rational thought.

    • by shanen ( 462549 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:36PM (#63203764) Homepage Journal

      Your metaphors are flawed. This is more like a situation where the knife maker has been lobbying to prevent laws against knife-based murder or the paper maker has been bribing politicians to stop worrying so much about litter. And I don't think you can point me at any knife or paper makers who are getting huge government subsidies on the side, to boot.

      Having said that, I think it's too late. There will be survivors, but I increasingly believe we are seeing the end of the good times for humanity. There probably will be future generations of descendants, but not so many, and they will probably curse the rich bastards who died so long ago with so many toys.

      (At least one of the brain farts was attempting to be funny?)

      • by kbahey ( 102895 )

        Having said that, I think it's too late. There will be survivors, but I increasingly believe we are seeing the end of the good times for humanity. There probably will be future generations of descendants, but not so many, and they will probably curse the rich bastards who died so long ago with so many toys.

        I've pondered the same thoughts of late ..

        There are many indicators that should give us concern, including:

        - climate change
        - wide proliferation of conspiracy theories and disinformation (COVID-19 virus, i

        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          Basically the ACK, though I don't see the democracy thing as such a killer. Also wondering why you didn't mention nuclear war, though I see that scenario as probably inevitable in the long run, and it may be really bad for the really few survivors.

          On the democracy topic, I was just triggered into some weird new thoughts, so I might as well start playing with them here... It starts with unilateral rule, where all the orders flow in one direction. The military is the best known example and easiest to understa

      • This is more like a situation where the knife maker has been lobbying to prevent laws against knife-based murder or the paper maker has been bribing politicians to stop worrying so much about litter.

        That doesn't make them a murderer. A corporation can only lobby it has no votes, not power to elect. Complaining about influence is admitting that people are too weak to give a shit themselves.

        And I don't think you can point me at any knife or paper makers who are getting huge government subsidies on the side, to boot.

        That's an irrelevant argument. Subsidies exist for many reasons which are wide and varied. You can look to Australia as a country that didn't apply subsidies to a particular field of oil and the end result? Corporations voted with their wallet, major oil producers shut down refineries to the point where Australia is n

      • So in other words ... https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]
        • by shanen ( 462549 )

          You got me to look at the attempted joke, but it doesn't make sense. At least I think it was an attempt at a joke.

    • by Ichijo ( 607641 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:39PM (#63203774) Journal

      The person guilty of murder is not the knife maker.

      Did the knife maker have reason to believe his product would be used to kill someone?

      Did the fossil fuel company have reason to believe their product would be used for combustion?

      • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        > Did the knife maker have reason to believe his product would be used to kill someone?

        "How could gasoline producers know the client was going to burn it. They thought the client was going to use it as a solvent."

        • by xevioso ( 598654 )

          They do know it will be burnt, but they are not burning it; the car driver is. But it's much easier to go after a few large corporations than tell every driving adult American that they are responsible for pollution and will have to, by law, pay for it.

          • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

            Once the fossil fuel producers knew that their product was responsible for climate change did they warn people that the continued (and increasing) use of their product might be harmful or did they double down and find ways to increase consumption?
            Sure it is easier to go after the few large corporations. You could try to go after the average user but guess where all their money went. It went to the fossil fuel industry that has been seeing increasing profits since the studies in question were produced.

      • by xevioso ( 598654 )

        This isn't relevant; the argument still stands: The person who burns the gasoline is the one who released the pollution, and is responsible for polluting. You don't *have* to drive in many cities, or at the very least, you don't *have* to purchase or use a vehicle that uses large amounts of gasoline. You could purchase an electric car.

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Want to apply that logic to other tools like software products which might be dual use? What about ones that are single use - if you release an exploit POC for something widely deployed you basically know someone is going to use it to do something without authorization - you'd accept full responsibility right? right?

      • Did the knife maker have reason to believe his product would be used to kill someone?

        Did the fossil fuel company have reason to believe their product would be used for combustion?

        Did either of those two negatives outweigh the positives? We live a life of incredible wealth and privilege and we do it largely off the back of the fossil fuels we burnt because *we* demanded cheap abundant energy. The companies just provide a product. And knife makers in the UK continue to sell knives knowing that knife crime was on the rise in London because ... people actually need knives.

    • by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:41PM (#63203790) Homepage Journal

      There may be a false equivalence here. Knives don't have murder as a forgone conclusion, whereas fossil fuels certainly do have pollution as a forgone conclusion. The knife maker can produce knives knowing that nearly all of them will be used properly and cause no harm, and only abuse of their product (which is out of their control at that point) might cause harm. The producers of fossil fuels know, with absolute certainty, that their products will be burned and cause harmful pollution and that this is the intent for their use at the moment they are sold.

      These difference seem material to me. And anyway, the deep pockets argument has an ethical angle to it. The producers of fossil fuels have the deepest pockets in the world. They have become one of the most powerful political lobbies in the world too, 100% from profits gained by selling products that are ruining the entire planet when used properly. So, it IS true that they can afford to fund the cleanup efforts, whereas most of the people who are completely dependent on their products cannot. That, however, is not the crux of the argument. The crux is that they actually are the initiators of harm in this case, since their product is essentially harmful, and also they have become emperors by causing all of this harm, so it makes sense that they should take responsibility for it.

      • by xevioso ( 598654 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @04:08PM (#63203868)

        They are not material or relevant. At the end of the day, the person (people) who is doing the polluting is the person who drives the car. Period. End of story. That person could choose *not* to pollute or use fossil fuels by
        1) Getting an electric car (which transfers the responsibility of the pollution to the entity providing the electricity)
        2) Not driving a car.

        However, telling hundreds of millions of Americans that they are responsible for polluting by driving and that they must be required by law to pay for it is going to be a hard sell. Good luck.

        • Period. End of story.
          No, the story seems far from over.

          You see, in the real world, there is such a thing as "shared responsibility." More than one person can jointly be responsible for a bad thing. In this case, it would be the person driving the car, AND the person manufacturing the fuel (especially since said fuel manufactures knew this would be a consequence and applied political pressure to bury that truth so they could keep on raking it in off all the damage that they had a hand in causing).

          Your bla

        • You need to do more than make conclusory statements. Why is the parent post not material or relevant? Why shouldn't miners be responsible for transforming these safely stored carbon-rich materials into pollution-generating end products. Miners are historically responsible for the pollution they cause. Why not here?

          Sure, people drive petrol cars but you leave out that other people also run gas and coal-fired power stations and run factories that make oil-based plastics and chemicals. So the power plants and

        • > the person (people) who is doing the polluting is the person who drives the car.

          Even if that person or people were consistently told that climate change wasn't real, and wasn't due to human activity and that fossil fuels were all good?

          There's no way the oil companies are just innocent victims here. They knew the problems, they spent millions convincing us all that those problems weren't a big deal and we should worry about them. Now we know better, I for one have no interest in protecting them.

          > How

    • Call it a deep pockets argument if you want, but It's also a very direct way to put the price of carbon capture into the price of the fuel. You could have the person who burned the fuel pay for it in many ways: A separate carbon capture service, through taxes that pay for carbon capture, or most direct of all, included in the base price of the fuel by the company that produced it and also has to capture the carbon.

      The person guilty of murder is not the knife maker. The person guilty of litter is not the paper maker.

      These are alternate, uncommon uses or more accurately misuses of these items. On the other han

      • by xevioso ( 598654 )

        You people keep using this argument, and it is vastly dumb. It's irrelevant that the only use of gasoline is to use it for its intended purpose, while a knife has many uses. The person who uses the knife can choose not to use the knife to murder, while the person who uses the car can choose to... use an electric car.

        The people who choose to drive the car that uses gasoline are the only people responsible for doing the vast majority of the polluting. If they choose *not* to drive a gas-powered car by drivi

        • xevioso, you have made quite a lot of posts on this article, all with the same argument. It should be quite clear now that you have failed to convince your target audience.

          But the reason isn't that your point lacks validity, its how you are presenting it as a simple black-and-white extreme. You seem to be claiming that end users are 100% guilty of all the pollution fossil fuels cause, and the providers of said fuels are 100% innocent. The truth is that both parties had a hand in causing pollution, neithe

    • by ewhac ( 5844 )
      What self-serving sophistry. That's like blaming the addict: "No one forced you to get addicted to heroin..." This is why we interdict harmful things at the source.

      The person guilty of litter is not the paper maker.

      Interesting how you carefully selected paper for your example, and not plastic. Just try to find a consumer product on the shelves that uses no plastic packaging. The end-user has no meaningful choice here -- yet another reason why blaming the end-user is invalid.

      • by xevioso ( 598654 )

        You can buy an electric car. You may have to suck it up and make Musk a little richer, but you can CHOOSE not to drive a gas powered vehicle. So you do have a meaningful choice.

        I live in San Diego. The freeways are great, and this is definitely a car city. It is hard to get around without a car.
        But you can do it. I know people who do it by choice, and others because they can't afford to drive.

        I *could* choose to only shop at farmers markets for my vegetables and use paper bags which I can later mulch or

        • The choice to drive a electric car has only been widely available for the past few years. We've been burning fossil fuels for more than 100 years and the oil producers have known about the various harms their product does for almost the entire time.
          • by xevioso ( 598654 )

            They have also known about the various good things the burning of fossil fuel has done, such as, oh, I don't know, provide the entire basis for the world's industrial economy for that 100 years? Funny how you ignore that.

            • Just take a deep breath and calm down a little bit.
              The ideas in my comment are easy to understand if you just try.
              I know you can do it.
        • by ewhac ( 5844 )

          I live in San Diego. The freeways are great, and this is definitely a car city. It is hard to get around without a car. But you can do it. I know people who do it by choice, and others because they can't afford to drive.

          Funny you should mention San Diego. It, along with Los Angeles and other major cities, were victims of a concerted effort to hamstring or reduce rail-based mass transit in favor of buses and cars ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ).

          So, is the fact that San Diego is now a "car city" real

        • by etash ( 1907284 )
          are you a fucking moron or a fucking worm who gets paid by exxon?

          end users could not drive an electric car in the for 90 years because there was none widely available

          end users could NOT chose to not burn gasoline because the criminals called exxon and others paid good money to convince everyone it's perfectly safe, no climate change will happen

          so, FUCK OFF AND I hope you choke on oil companies dick while sucking it.
    • by Halo1 ( 136547 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:44PM (#63203806)

      It's an argument of not hiding externalities. By requiring the producers to take care of cleaning up (part of) the pollution, the clean-up cost will get factored into the price (so the competition is not at an unfair disadvantage) and you ensure it actually gets done. That said, at least until now the carbon capture implementations I have read about haven't exactly had stellar results. See e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com] or https://reneweconomy.com.au/do... [reneweconomy.com.au] (although I admit I haven't followed it recently, so maybe massive strides forward have been made since then)

    • This strikes me as a simple deep pockets argument, not an ethical argument.

      One thing it is definitely not is a scientific argument so the fact that a group of scientists made it is entirely irrelevant. It's also a pointless argument since regardless of whether the companies or governments pay to clean up the CO2 ultimately we will pay either through higher taxes or higher fuel costs.

    • This strikes me as a simple deep pockets argument, not an ethical argument. The person guilty of murder is not the knife maker. The person guilty of litter is not the paper maker. The person guilty of releasing carbon dioxide is the person who releases it, not the person who made the food (consumed by animals and humans) or fossil fuels (burned by consumers and coal fired electrical plants).

      Furthermore, many fossil fuel companies in the previous century have gone out of business, so there's really no one to go after for their carbon.

      The way companies work, a company can pump as much carbon into the atmosphere as they want, and if they're called to task they can declare bankruptcy - the founders/investors are protected from the company's actions.

      And let's not forget that "the technology exists" is just barely true - we're only this year starting pilot programs for carbon capture, carbon capture

    • by Baki ( 72515 )

      In most European countries you pay a tax on some products to pay for their (free) recycling,
      because otherwise it would not happen.
      The vendor needs to collect that tax and then is forced to take back products and recycle them.
      In Switzerland it is called the "vorgezogene recycling gebühr".

      This seems quite similar and not unreasable at all, and one of the few solutions to the problem of the commons.
      I cannot think of a more ethical system that actually works.

    • Percentage of extracted oil ultimately burned: Over 75%

      Percentage of knives used for murder: Less than 0.001%

      Go away.

    • The price of knife include all the costs associated with its use. It is not a relevant example.

      The cost of paper does not include the cost of disposing the waste. We can theoretically come up with a frame work like 5 cents for the empty soda cans. The paper maker pays to a thirdparty paper litter disposal company some money, and people are rewarded for collecting and depositing the litter and the litter disposer gets paid. The paper user will then be paying the cost of making, using and disposing the produ

    • This strikes me as a simple deep pockets argument, not an ethical argument. The person guilty of murder is not the knife maker. The person guilty of litter is not the paper maker. The person guilty of releasing carbon dioxide is the person who releases it, not the person who made the food (consumed by animals and humans) or fossil fuels (burned by consumers and coal fired electrical plants).

      Not really.

      For one, the litterer and murderer are not using the product as intended, the fossil fuel consumer is.

      Secondly, it's an argument of practicality. It's much easier to impose a 'balance the ledger' requirement on a relative handful of extractors than literally billions of consumers.

      Thirdly, the cost of requiring the extractors to recapture the carbon means the costs will be passed onto consumers, exactly the same as if you made consumers pay directly. The main difference is that extractors now have

    • If someone is aware of a crime about to be committed, that person is an accessory to the crime if they do not report the crime before it happens. I believe that oil companies do indeed share some burden of what has transpired, considering that they were well aware of the end outcome in the 1970s. [harvard.edu]

      If someone not directly connected to the crime in some manner hinders the investigation of the crime in a deliberate manner, they have abetted the perpetrators of the crime. I believe that oil companies do indeed

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      Your analogy doesn't work, because *criminal culpability* cannot be redistributed but *economic responsibility* always is.

      In other words, the fossil fuel companies will simply pass their costs on to the people doing the emitting, so the effect is approximately the same as charging people who emit CO2 into the atmosphere the cost of removing that CO2. There is some difference in that a cost of sequestration will also fall on the minority of users who consume petroleum but don't emit it into the atmosphere -

    • These scientists are either trolling or folks should wonder about their intelligence. Powers that be decide what is in their best interests. Genies hard if not impossible to put back in bottles. More important is balancing power, coz then can better direct actions. Democracy is a choice I like, though it has limits. Most voters are not scientists. The alternative is typically a vicious authoritarian, that needs to cling to their power else another takes their place, rarely a benevolent King. So back to the
    • by dbialac ( 320955 )
      I mean not only that but there are better ways to store carbon like closed or negative cycle sugarcane, possibly sugar beets or a plant that will grow in the desert (look up "boeing ethanol"). These can absorb carbon and some will grow in parts of the world that are currently barren.
    • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

      The tobacco industry isn't responsible for people getting cancer. It is the people that smoked the tobacco that are responsible.

  • for scientists (Score:2, Insightful)

    by FudRucker ( 866063 )
    they aren't very scientific, and mostly pedantic
  • Unless the manufacturer's are penalized, they have no incentive to fix their products. We must penalize them & force them to change.
    • The manufacturers aren't the ones using the fuel and releasing the carbon. And there's no "fix". The fuels work precisely as advertised.

      • They are the ones making sure that the EV industry stayed dead. They made sure that consumers had no choice but to use their products.

        Exxon knew since the 70s that their products are killing the planet and did nothing about it. Instead they spent more & more on lobbyists to ensure there was no alternative.

        Fuck fines. Send them all to jail
    • We could penalise them right now if we wanted to. But what will you fill up your car with tomorrow? Hopes and dreams? Maybe you're wealthy enough to go buy an EV, what about those people who aren't?

      You may not like it, but not only is the overwhelming majority of carbon released by end users, but for the past 100 years we've built our economy and way of life around releasing that carbon. Cutting off supply is insanely crippling.

      • End-users donot have a choice. They have to goto work to be able to pay for rent. The only car they can buy is a petrol one

        The ones that have a choice are the banks, politicians, lobbyists, fossil fuel producers, all of whom are busy making sure their industry stays on top & the oney keeps flowing

        Exxon, Shell, BP, all these f**kers have known since the 70s that they were killing the environment. Yet no one lifted a single finger to hep EVs happen.

        Send em all to jail
        • The ones that have a choice are the banks, politicians, lobbyists, fossil fuel producers, all of whom are busy making sure their industry stays on top & the oney keeps flowing

          And the banks and politicians chose to continue supporting the growth of their economy by demanding the cheapest and most plentiful energy we could identify. Your scenario is like the one I'm campaigning against, except with a different boogeyman. Instead of complaining about Exxon fucking the poor, we'd be complaining about governments or banks doing it.

          Exxon, Shell, BP, all these f**kers have known since the 70s that they were killing the environment. Yet no one lifted a single finger to hep EVs happen.

          Why would they? No seriously I'm curious about your thought process here. Here we have a list of companies that are doing something legally allowed and (of

  • by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @03:32PM (#63203754)
    is not burned and turned into products, so not all of production needs a CO2 tax on it, only the stuff that's burned.
  • This is a terrible idea and probably funded by Fossil Fuel companies. The goal here is to make everyone think we can keep burning all the FFs instead of switching to wind & solar (or even nuclear if you're in a country where you can trust private business with it).
    • You've done background checks on Stuart Jenkins, Margriet Kuijper, Hugh Helferty, Cécile Girardin, and Myles Allen to ascertain their funding sources?

  • Scientists don't make policy. If they want to make policy then they should run for office.

  • by eepok ( 545733 ) on Thursday January 12, 2023 @04:07PM (#63203866) Homepage

    1. Decide on carbon mitigation/capture efforts to implement.
    2. Price them out.
    3. Institute profits-based taxes on the related industries concurrent with the costs.
    4. Implement mitigation/capture efforts.

    The time for hemming and hawing is gone. These are last ditch efforts to preserve a planet for human survival and they're being hampered by people who are already so old that they won't be around to have to deal with the worst of it.

    Do the unpopular thing. The only people who will be harmed are the rich and the only type of harm is that they'll be a little less rich.

    They get a little less rich or reduced species survivability. Put it on a scale and figure out which is more important.

    • You're insane. You think the only people that will be harmed will be the rich? They're the only ones that will have enough money to enjoy peace and security if you increase the global cost of energy. The first to starve and die will be the poor.

      Beware heavy-handed tactics. Heavier hands may yet emerge to crush you.

      • You make it sound as if "the price of energy" is the only related cost. It obviously isn't: a multitude of expenses ensue. Some due to an increase of wildfires, floods or hurricanes, others due to harvests gone wrong, increased disease, the list goes on and on.

        Raising the price of carbon to reflect the realistic cost is only normal.

        On top, you pretend carbon-based is the only energy source, while of course, there's many more types of energy.

        Get real, we're long overdue for abandoning carbon. In the meanwhi

    • I like your points you made. I believe there is a flaw in your statement of who will be harmed.

      Everyone will feel it. Many common items you (and I mean you personally, and everyone else including me) use are derived from fossil fuels. If you raise the cost to produce said product (again not just fuel) then who will pay for it? The business will not just say "oh shucks, I guess we'll just pay for it and make the products the same price". The costs will be passed on to everyone. All those plastic contai

  • Of course the cost will make it's way back into the price. Otherwise if the industry then falls consistently below profitability, the companies would - and should, economically speaking - simply stop doing what they're doing. And that might be the goal. Of course it would fuck over a world completely unprepared for such a situation...

  • To set an example to all of our new policies for a brave new carbon-free world, these researchers must be forced to take back all the carbon they themselves have emitted (including each breath they exhaled). Oh, and NO CHEATING by paying somebody else money to not do a thing, as some phony shambolic "offset".

    This is all, of course, completely absurd.

    Carbon is not a pollutant; ALL LIFE ON EARTH IS CARBON BASED! It's been a rather impressive propaganda effort to convince the public that the atoms at the base

    • "Carbon is not a pollutant; ALL LIFE ON EARTH IS CARBON BASED! "

      For sure. And arsenic naturally occurs in the human body. Would you care to drink a glass of it?

    • by skam240 ( 789197 )

      CO2 is not literally a pollutant but is often referred to as such because the pumping of extra CO2 into our atmosphere causes problems similar to pollutant. Basically people calling CO2 a pollutant are using metaphor.

      I doubt you really care though as we've had so much supporting data and such scientific consensus on the potential dangers of global warming for the last two decades that you clearly prefer ideology to rational thought.

  • Can we get pound for pound carbon sequestration credit by burying homeless people?

    • Can we get pound for pound carbon sequestration credit by burying homeless people?

      I'm not sure of this specific question but I know they count burning biomass + carbon capture as carbon removal. The key is making sure captured carbon doesn't leak back out into the environment.

  • The earth burp/farts 40 years of Carbon Dioxide all at once once the earth is super-saturated with it?

    • It'll be a hot time in the old town that night. Guys and gals, we are screwed. Many governments around the world will not give a rat's ass and continue to burn FF all the same. The entire world needs to get on board. OPEC and the like are not of this world. China, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, etc.. are not of this world. They don't give two shits about this and they never will.

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