Will we really move the needle on reducing greenhouse gas emissions with advice like this…?

“Since the advent of the modern web, the ability to include embedded fonts and provide a more customized experience has seen their use explode. They aren't always the most performant option (which poses emissions hazards) and come with a few issues such as Flash Of Unstyled Content (FOUC) / Flash Of Unstyled Text (FOUT) which should be addressed.”

IMO, if we want reduced emissions, citizens in all countries need to tell our leaders/representatives that the monetary cost of polluting must increase, until emissions are drastically decreased – i.e. we must internalize these negative externalities. In the EU, we have the Emissions Trading System for this purpose.

If we don’t demand this from our leaders, how can we expect emissions to decrease?

I’m sure a group like the Sustainable Web Interest Group can come up with a bunch of nice ideas, but I’m not convinced they can solve climate change.

Sure, stuff like embedded fonts might possibly increase emissions. But if W3C are advicing against their usage, where’s the data that supports this guideline?

(A Pigouvian tax can be another alternative, but harder to implement in EU, since taxes here are collected on the nation-level.)