Who has the power to outlaw carbon globally? Those with energy have the power, and currently carbon is where our energy is. I don't see a ban working.
Further, our whole systemis dependent on carbon. Millions (billions?) would starve without it, along with other downsides.
Future impacts will be worse if we don't stop, but tell that to people suffering today.
The advantage of a carbon tax approach is that it uses market incentives to encourage investments in alternatives. Hopefully, we are able to discover viable alternatives via this method, otherwise we're done for either way.
A command and control shutdown simply seems impossible. Maybe carbon taxes are too, but I feel a tax and dividend approach could work, as everyone gets money from it. Or a proposal to tax carbon and massively cut income taxes.
The yellow jacket protests you cite:
1. Didn't have any return of money to taxpayers. It was just a tax hike.
Carbon taxing is, in some suitably narrow economic point of view, optimal, but it seems it's politically almost impossible to get it passed.
The other popular large-scale technology-neutral suggestion, cap-and-trade, suffers from much of the same problems. E.g. the EU ETS is mostly a bureaucratic boondoggle that achieves nothing (the price is so low it doesn't have much, if any, effect).
The biggest problem with such a tax is that all countries would have to implement it. When the US is accounting for about 15% of global carbon emissions we can’t solve the problem just by reducing our own carbon emission.
In in actual fact, the sooner leader countries like the USA do it the sooner other countries get their act together.
Don't act like this is all or nothing. It's not.
Furthermore, the sooner the USA does it the sooner technologies improve, the sooner other smaller countries are suddenly enabled by said technologies.
That aside whole "we all need to do it" is utter nonsense. No, you don't. Other countries taking advantage of you is still not a socially moral excuse. Mind yourself first thanks.
The US led the world in emission reductions in 2018, meanwhile the EU, Canada, India, and China increased their production significantly. Yet the US gets slammed by the global community
Yes it should. It made it happen because instead of having endless meetings and brainstorming sessions in Lesbos or Johannesburg, the heartless ignoramuses of Texas figured out how to drill for clean energy. What really did the brainstormes accomplish considering the chart presented?
One useful rhetorical side effect is breaking the narrative linking GDP with petrol consumption. Opening people's mind's to the possibility that conservation and switching to renewable won't crater the economy.
Growing is easy when you start from zero, and reducing is easy when you can easily move your production elsewhere. BP statistical review probably have their numbers right, I'm more concern about the message they want to spread. (I do not say that EU/China should be able to increase their emissions, just that the US is not decreasing its consumption therefore it is impossible to decrease emission)
Border adjustments are a well understood policy solution to this issue. Imports from polluting countries are taxed appropriately, and exports to those countries subsidized. From the perspective of anyone inside the nation with the border adjustment, it’s as though the whole world implemented the carbon tax.
the US is pretty big as a whole, compared the EU the difference is as extreme. Also, never allow for the discussion to go by per capita as the seriously distorts the numbers in countries where a great deal of the population does not participate
> The biggest problem with such a tax is that all countries would have to implement it. When the US is accounting for about 15% of global carbon emissions
Hypothetically provinces/countries could be taxed relative to their emissions (albeit this would take some fantasy-like widely agreed upon criteria).
The US has a little over 4% of the world population, yet it's responsible for 15% of carbon emissions [1]. Even if the US is the only country to implement it, it would already make a huge difference.
Or in a more civil way, since it seems we have entered the era of tariffs wars, perhaps countries with carbon taxes should be slapping tariffs on imports from countries with none. Tie the tariff to some metric derived from a country's estimated CO2 emissions, subtracting some amount for % land mass in forests, reforestation efforts, carbon tax rates, deployment of renewables, etc.
It would have negative economic consequences in the short term, I'm sure. But put in place by large importers it would directly motivate emission offenders to not play the game of lowest-common-denominator.
Taxing is half the story. The other half is returning this tax revenue back to the economy by offsetting other taxes. Where it breaks down is when progressives push to spend this tax revenue on their pet projects.
A failure mode of environmentalism is attaching it to random other progressive ideas. "Let's have a carbon tax and use it to fund universal healthcare!" I want a carbon tax, and I want universal healthcare, AND I want them to be completely disjoint. I will argue for each independently on their merits.
Otherwise both magnify each others' vulnerabilities. For example, say universal health care is funded through a carbon tax, and this tax works really well and emissions plummet. Now universal health care suffers? What a stupid outcome!
Robust government programs are independent with separate funding (see Social Security). Make a big carbon tax, have it fund an equally big carbon dividend, and run it independently from everything else on the progressive or conservative wish list.
This cuts the other way too. No, a carbon tax should not fund conservative pet projects like eliminating capital gains. That has to live or die on its own merits, not tied to environmentalism. The carbon tax must be its own thing to endure.
Hypothecation and/or ring fencing is generally bad policy anyway, but it has a certain appeal.
Here it’s mostly seen when people argue that road taxes (VED) and fuel taxes should be spent on roads.
I’m with Churchill on the one:
“Entertainments may be taxed; public houses may be taxed; racehorses may be taxed…and the yield devoted to the general revenue. But motorists are to be privileged for all time to have the whole yield of the tax on motors devoted to roads. Obviously this is all nonsense…Such contentions are absurd, and constitute…an outrage upon the sovereignty of Parliament and upon common sense.”
Churchill has a pleasant way with words, but the logic of argument simply boils down to "no u". Not everyone agrees that parliament is sole sovereign over citizens' lives. Many believe that Parliament's legitimacy derives from consent of the governed, and that taxes should be justified for a purpose, not arbitrary demonstrations of "might makes right".
Ironically, if the U.S. had national healthcare system for which the government had to pay directly, it may not have been basically the only country on Earth to reject climate change.
Countries that have to pay for healthcare have a strong incentive to keep its population healthy to reduce healthcare costs. The U.S. doesn't because it doesn't pay for it directly - it's the citizens themselves that have to pay for it.
Ultimately, the U.S. economy is still negatively impacted by an unhealthy population/workers, but since it's not a direct impact for which the government has to pay out of its tax funds, it doesn't care nearly as much about that impact.
>Countries that have to pay for healthcare have a strong incentive to keep its population healthy to reduce healthcare costs
It doesn't work that way in practice. It's a weird argument and nobody would ever buy it as there is no obvious cognitive (and politically valid) path from climate change policy to healthcare policy. This is true for America, and Canada and Australia and I suspect every other country.
Also, your underlying assumption, that the American government either has no incentive or is uncaring with respect to keeping the American public health, is just wrong and probably betrays your ideology. Both parties, Dems and GOP, care about people.
Medicare and Medicaid together are the federal government’s biggest expense. That’s not counting other federal health care spending, like VA or ACA related items, nor does it count state contributions to Medicaid. Or CHIP for that matter.
About 20% of Americans have Medicaid, and about 20% have Medicare. There is some, but not much, overlap, so the total percentage doesn’t hit 40%. Health care needs to be better in the US, but it’s misleading to suggest that huge amounts (trillions of dollars) of government money aren’t already being spent on it.
If you look at the numbers, the various levels of government in the US spend more on healthcare, as a percent of GDP, than most(all?) European countries. So if this was a thing that would push policy on climate change, it would be a bigger lever in the US than in Europe.
This is the problemn and you illustrate it perfectly. If you propose a plan that introduces a carbon tax with the revenue returned back to the economy, progressives will attempt to kill it. For progressives, an environmental policy is only sound if it goes with massive government expansion. Nobody cares about the environment. It is always ideology first.
The point of a carbon tax is to fund and/or incentivize research into non-carbon energy production, or carbon removal technology. If you just offset other taxes, for a tax-neutral result, then there's no (macro) tax incentive so how does that happen?
market competition leads to better manufacturing techniques that avoid the tax. Local optimization leads to global optimization. To argue otherwise would be to argue that taxes overall have no effect on business behavior, which is clearly false.
A carbon tax is specifically imposed to force markets to consider externalities. That is a free market solution. The opposite would be quotas and bans.
I actually favor quotas and bans to deal with carbon dioxide emissions.
The problem with the externalities argument is that nobody really knows what they cost. A market solution would be based upon true supply and demand and agreement on price in buy / sell transactions. A tax representing the "externality" is just a politically made-up number. So it's sort of free market but not really.
> The problem with the externalities argument is that nobody really knows what they cost.
One asks to what degree do we not know the costs? And these costs aren't ketchup economic prices but actual primary environmental effects. You can't buy your way out of those by having the central bank provide more liquidity.
> A market solution would be based upon true supply and demand and agreement on price in buy / sell transactions.
This is worse because the market not only has no way to price these cost but it is _blind_ to them. That you don't realize this means you think 'free markets' are 'magical'
> A tax representing the "externality" is just a politically made-up number. So it's sort of free market but not really.
FTI: Your free markets don't exist without politics.
> This is worse because the market not only has no way to price these cost but it is _blind_ to them. That you don't realize this means you think 'free markets' are 'magical'
Not the guy you're replying to, but you're wrong. This isn't a debate about effectiveness, it's about whether the tax is a free market solution or not. No one is arguing that the market isn't blind to it; this very well could be a case of a market failure and a tax may very well be the correct solution, it is not however a free market solution. A tax is government interference in the market and is by definition not a free market solution.
No, it isn't. Taxes are not free market solutions. End of story. Taxes are government interference in the market; this isn't debatable, it's just a fact.
A tax is only opposite a free market to the extent that it distorts the market. The more direct and simple the tax, the freer the market. And when the tax is directly addressing externalities that are normally not paid, it makes the market less distorted.
Markets exist with or without government, governments make markets more stable and handle cases of market failures, and markets do fail. But under no case is government intervention a free market solution. Lack of government does not abolish rules or property rights, it just changes how those things are enforced as it leaves everyone to defend their own property and it leaves enforcement of rules to private security forces.
I'm not claiming government intervention isn't good; I'm simply arguing you can't call it a free market solution, because it isn't. Taxes are not free market solutions.
No. While it may be the most market friendly approach, it's not a free market approach. There is not de facto free market solution, it's entirely possible the free market has no solution; that does not make the best available solution a market solution.
Finally, someone who actually understands the conversation being had. Absolutely correct; carbon taxes might be the best solution available, but they are not a free market solution.
You seem to be the only one in this thread with the clarity of thought to see the obvious.
Not at all. That creates an effective subsidy on non-domestic production. Carbon tax on my factory in California? I’ll move it to Nairobi. Add a tariff? Then other countries retaliate and domestic companies can no longer sell their goods abroad. Domestic consumers would pay higher prices and the economy grinds to a halt due to reduced production from reduced international trade.
Why wouldn't companies start producing less carbon intensive products? Seems to have worked pretty well with cars, which even with the recent dieselgate, are much more efficient than before.
Currently there's an effective subsidy on air polluters; I can sue my neighbor who dumps waste on my land, but I can't sue the people dumping carbon in my lungs. Is that subsidy not concerning?
If we tax “carbon,” are you going to lower my income taxes? I’ll support a carbon tax when you support eliminating capital gains and income taxes. Unless cutting taxes and spending is a part of this carbon tax plan, I will never support it. I already give over 50% of my money to governments, I’m not about to support even more.
Would you give up more to ensure your children don’t grow up in a dystopian nightmare? What if the necessary amount is 60% of your income? 90%? What if our only hope is to go back to a 18C standard of living? Unfortunately the planet doesn’t care if you have enough cash to pay rent once you account for your environmental externalities.
Most people would gladly give up their income to ensure their children don’t grow up in a dystopian nightmare. The issue is that not everyone agrees on the way how exactly that money should be spent, and how nightmarish the future looks.
What if we can learn how to control climate and have ice free arctic, green sahara and 21st century standard of living?
While we need a way to penalize air polution (not just co2!), implementing that simply as 'extra money that government can spend on war' is not ideal.
Considering Medicare and social security, that doesn't seem to be the case. The older folks basically said: our children can pay that. And kicked the can down the road because it won't be their problem.
> Most people would gladly give up their income to ensure their children don’t grow up in a dystopian nightmare.
People who start off by making an "I'm taxed too much" argument might do this for their own children, but the whole point is that they're not willing to spend a single dollar to save someone else's children.
That never works. You part of your money today and down the line any random reason become an emergency forcing all your taxes into sustaining this or that politicized program which never does anything but help greasing the wheel of the political machine.
So you both lose your money today and you don't do your children future any better.
Taxation is the wrong answer, taxation works to resolve at most the issues of today, never the issues of tomorrow
As of today the best one can do is ethical spending and information campaigns and hope enough people vote with their wallet for sustainable companies.
We are all on the same planet and we'll all suffer as temperatures rise.
Let's agree that a carbon tax should be revenue neutral (via a dividend), and not fund either a progressive or conservative agenda. The purpose of the tax is to internalize CO2 externalities. Other issues can be hashed out on their merits.
Agreed. Carbon pricing works via substitution effects: carbon-intensive goods become relatively more expensive so people substitute towards less carbon-intensive goods, all other things equal. Tax revenue hypothecation hardly ever makes sense anyway, as tax revenue is fungible.
You avoid paying more by buying products and services that emit less carbon and therefore are less taxed. This economic incentive is how the tax helps curb carbon emissions (and hopefully other forms of pollution also, why stop at carbon when the world is drowning in single-use plastic for example).
