Economics Asked by Mars Robertson on December 31, 2020
I’m not sure if an individual choosing a “green energy supplier” is making any difference.
My (potentially naive, uneducated) logic is as follows:
higher demand for green energy = less demand for other energy
Less demand, therefore lower price, those who are polluting the most now have fewer incentives to switch. Supply and demand, elementary market forces.
I would like to better understand if choosing green energy makes any difference?
Personal note: I’m in the camp of effective altruism. In my version of reality, giving £1 to a homeless is a selfish “feel good” act that does solve the underlying problem of education, employability, affordable housing, mental health support, resilience and life skills.
Your intuition is correct, actually switching from dirty good to clean good will also increase demand for clean good so price there might increase as well. However, this does not mean doing some voluntary change could not help as it also depends on how the quantity demanded changes with price (elasticity of demand). So switching is not necessarily unhelpful.
However, at the same time it is also only a partial solution. In order to fully internalize the externality it’s necessary to apply Piguvian tax to the dirty good at a level that fully internalizes the externality to people consuming the good.
Answered by 1muflon1 on December 31, 2020
Two things:
Of course, this is all airy-fairy stuff. A Pigouvian tax is challenging to enact, because on the global scale, enacting one is a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma. Hence output-based allocation systems for high-emitting, trade-exposed industries right or wrongly advocated on the grounds of "competitiveness".
Answered by heh on December 31, 2020
Higher demand for green energy =less demand for other energy it is true , but demand for energy in developing countries is so high that any energy whether it is green or not , it's not their fault or unawareness it is their necessity , green energy costs more as the cost of green infrastructure ( maintenance , capital infrastructure ) is huge . Eco tax , regenerative industry models , secondhand good industries, carbon credits for industries could make a difference in climate change . German eco tax initiative in 2003, California's carbon cap- trade scheme in 2013 are proofs that green energy contributes to climate change
Answered by Cherry on December 31, 2020
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