Climate Change Is Critical, But …

It was once a bright morning where the sky was blue and clear, I was somewhere above the waters and headed for Karangmajat Island, a district of the Mentawai Islands. Our departure started around 07.00 WIB (West Indonesia Time) from Siberut Island with 10 passenger motor-boat, sailed through the rivers and swamps along the journey. An hour later, we reached the calm Southwest Siberut water. My heart was crazy instantly as I gaze at a gaggle of lovely small islands (they were about 90 cubic meters wide) every here and there; so tiny uninhabited except few seagulls, only white sands under one and two coconut trees and heaps of the seaweed.

The boat’s owner said, “We won’t to see more small islands around. Now they're long gone, Sis. This island was wider some time past.” He pointed to a little island as we went by. “This one gets narrower whenever I come here, and there’ll be always any island go vanish.” It was May 2006, 15 years ago. As a notable government official stated that the rising water level is more dangerous than COVID-19, I remember these small islands and their white sands scatter around Mentawai Islands. I've got no idea whether these islands still exist or drown nowadays.

A study revealed that in the year 2100, 630 million people who dwell in lands will probably must deal with periodic flooding due to higher and higher sea surface. Hence, if you and your family are enjoying a dry and safe homes at the moment, there’s any chance that your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, as well as your coming descendants may not able to enjoy the same luxury. We can just ignore this possibility, nevertheless, we might have passed away when the mega disaster swept the Earth as seen in the Hollywood movies. But, choosing to neglect and leave behind the responsibility over the damage we've drained the past are not any less than cowards that will die repeatedly before their deaths, and hurtful for our next generations.

 

Carbon tax - who will make the most benefit from it?

I believe that any of you know or read somewhere about rising sea level that was begun with the melt of icebergs in the North and South Pole. The massive meltdown is caused by the warmer temperature on the Earth surface as the result of carbon emission produced by industrial, power plants, and vehicles smoke, everything that releases smoke as the contributory result. Concerned for the Earth’s future and unwillingness to spend the rest of life above the waters someday, in 1973 David Gordon Wilson came up with the idea about carbon fee.

Based on this scheme, all goods and services product conditioning that brings carbon discharges, as a result, will be the objects for carbon fee instead of the carbon tax. While the carbon tax is getting into the government’s pocket, Wilson’s carbon fee will be paid back to the citizens indeed though the recipients are not always the ones who pay the price in the first place. Tax-based carbon, he said, tends to weaken purchasing power. People with lower income will get the hardest hit since they have to spend the utmost of their income on transportation or menage needs. If people from this category get the same share of carbon fee which accumulated by the end of the month, they will manage to survive.

The carbon tax scheme is not only hard on the knees and will weigh on the middle to low-income people’s expenses, the industrial sector (and particularly the oil sector) will also be affected by the new rule. In short, a carbon tax definition is a tax that assesses fuel usage formulated on its carbon level. On the one hand, a carbon tax subject is a person or an institution who buys any carbon-contained goods or involve in any conditioning which results in carbon emission. On the other hand, human activities in total – individually and or collectively – without carbon emission as the outcome is countable by fingers.

As for industrial business, carbon tax also means higher production costs will hinder post-pandemic recovery for several sectors in the long term. As luck would have it, the industrial world has an alternative i.e. cap-and-trade adopted by a few countries. Still, there is one critical question carbon tax and or cap-and-trade countries need to answer.

There’s already a brewing debate around how the carbon tax funds will be managed and employed. With its huge amount in total, it is natural for anyone to have curiosity on the allocation of carbon tax revenue and for what purposes. According to a source, there is a proposal to allocate carbon tax revenue to reduce levies assessed on various productive activities (e.g. paying a proportion of factory workers’ tax, so they will pay lower income tax). There is also a similar idea to David Gordon Wilson's, distributing all carbon tax revenue in carbon dividends to all consumers or using it to fund and maintain infrastructure. This conception is ideal on paper. Purposefully armed with the spirit to reach the mutual goal - a greener and more prosperous Earth equally for all its inhabitants. How wonderful!

Every single fray around the climate change issue is a little stale, not breaking news shakes the world abruptly like the COVID-19 pandemic. Ordinary people may be surprised to read the various discourses that shifting to green energy is the only solution to pull through climate change. Environmental activists may be amazed as they try to comprehend high-ranking officials’, both from within and outside the country, concerns about climate change when there are little to no impactful actions for harmful environmental messes such as legalized deforestation in the name of the economy. Or wildlife extinction. Some folks on the North Coast of Java have lost their homes due to rising sea levels, which has been happening for several years. Why did we see no effort about it?

Clean energy is expensive

Apart from nominal carbon tax adapted with different standards in each country, we must admit that the shift from dirty energy to clean energy is not a cheap bid. Electric cars are seen as a savior in the midst of increasing panic attacks due to climate change, with Tesla is appearing as the pioneer and Elon Musk as Tesla's founder is triumphantly becoming the richest person in the universe. Ideas and creativity must be rewarded accordingly, so it's only natural that the Model Y is priced at 61 thousand US dollars (around Rp 841 million, taxes and others have not been included). China has also to launch the Nio electric car, which it claims will catch Tesla thanks to its production speed and lower price. There is a strong possibility that the electric car war will flare over in the near future.

Then what about fossil fuel cars? At the time of writing, I see several advertisements promoting new types of fossil fuel cars from various brands. Some even offer big discounts, substantially those of secondhand car sellers. This practice seems to show the disinclination of auto manufacturers to bear losses due to energy shifts, to such an extent all fuel cars that produced must be sold out before the official energy transition policy is enforced. But of course, they will no way have to care how fossil fuel car owners may feel – the very people who need to deal with higher fuel costs due to the carbon tax at the end of the day.

To dispose of fossil energy completely is not as easy as turning the palm of the hand for some countries. Earlier, China which was accused internationally as one of the largest carbon-emitting countries outside Europe and America has taken drastic measures. Xi Jinping's government decided to push down carbon emissions by reducing the production and coal use for power plants. The impact of this policy was that the electricity supply decreased since 60% of power plants in China are coal-fueled ones. In turn, citizens and industrial activities were disrupted due to regular blackouts. Losses piled up, with industries becoming the most sufferers when they were about to rise again after the pandemic storm. Two months later, China revoked its so-called climate change policy.

 

Less is more

The impact of climate change shall not have to be borne only by the governments, on the ground that this problem is also a concern among communities everywhere. With some equitable advice, they can get people to take an active role and stand out for the Earth is ours. Such advice should not be limited to calls to get rid of fossil fuel vehicles and replace them with electric ones or install solar panels in their homes. This kind of energy solution costs a lot, while the purchasing power of people in various countries is weakening due to high inflation and rising taxes. Unless the state is willing to provide public funds to buy electric cars or purchase and install solar panels, it is unlikely massive enthusiasm for such environmentally friendly solutions will grow fast.

Why? In the previous article on Financial Repression, inflation was pushed to accelerate the recovery thus bringing back the economy to its pre-COVID-19 level. Added to the burden of the carbon tax, the consequence of this policy is excessively expensive for people, as goods and services prices increase when salaries don’t. Everyone everywhere is forced to lower expenses to keep the wheels of life going. In such a situation, managing household budgets is a must-have skill, except they don't mind borrowing money and choked in debt for some time. For those who are hesitant to go into debt, conscientiously choosing and dumping daily needs is the only way out. The longer the list, the better.

Less is more was highly praised when the minimalist lifestyle became hype not so long ago. The primary mission of this lifestyle is cutting consumerism to the lowest, while that doesn't mean you can't have anything but clothes that stick to your body. One with a minimalist lifestyle will prioritize the quality of an item over its price. For example, it’s better to buy an expensive but high-quality electronic device than a cheap one that breaks within 1-2 months since we bought it. Earphones or power banks, for example, are nonessential electronic devices for some, and they are inexpensive when compared to iPhone 13. Due to their low prices, we tend not to bother when such devices break and people will tend to suggest buying a new one instead of fixing it.

Have we ever thought, where the earphones waste will go, ones without sound or broken off wires? I am a big fan of earphones, and our family can produce about 10 broken earphones in one year. Imagine if that number multiplied by the number of cheap earphone users in one country. Buying expensive electronic devices is not a budget-friendly choice. But this option, believe it or not, is more practical in the long run. We don't need to be bothersome over vulnerable trivial devices and have to spend more money to replace them. Well, this is just one of many simplest ways to prove our role in saving the Earth. (dy)