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A simple carbon tax at $X/ton and a little patience would go along way by simply making carbon-lighter solutions more competitive. The problem with pretty much

A simple carbon tax at $X/ton and a little patience would go along way by simply making carbon-lighter solutions more competitive. The problem with pretty much any regulation actually implemented is that politicians have been way too eager picking winners (massively subsidising specific approaches instead of letting a thousand flowers bloom) and protecting losers (assigning emissions trading credits to existing big polluters, essentially shielding the organisations that need them the most from incentives, while burying newcomers in cost and red tape), creating an opaque web of perverse incentives and an orgy for lobbyists.

realityking 10y ago
This. Taxes (and some kinds of regulation like Germany's "fell a tree, plant a tree" rules) are immensely helpful to price externalities into the market.
- mseebach 10y ago
  Chopping down and burning a tree would incur the carbon tax, so the idea would be that this would incentivise you to plant a new tree. Perhaps planting a tree should incur a negative carbon tax.
bsdetector 10y ago
The question becomes if the taxes are raised high enough to actually impact or reverse climate change, will people abide by them? If it costs $100/day to heat your home in the winter are you going to pay that or buy black market kerosene or just chop down a tree and burn it when no government inspector is around? There's a limit to how much can be done with taxes.
- tomp 10y ago
  > just chop down a tree and burn it That's the goal, no? Burning oil releases CO2. Growing trees and burning them is carbon neutral.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Kind of - this approach works until you run out of trees, then you have a serious problem. Sub-saharan Africa is experiencing this in places http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80918e/80918E0u.htm http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80918e/80918E0u.ht...
    - Aeolos 10y ago
      Plus, burning trees generates a ton of other harmful particles. It's not a problem if a few people do it during winter time for fun, but it becomes a massive healthcare issue when it generates a suffocating low-lying brown smog carpeting your whole city.
- mseebach 10y ago
  First, there's no evidence that the carbon tax would have to be so high to be effective - $7-20/ton[1], probably increasing over time. US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The point is to create a clear and simple incentive across the board to switch to low-carbon behaviour, not to raise revenues. Third, nobody promised this would be a quick fix, but nothing is at the moment. But re-jiggering the economy to give a clear incentive is a good start, and even at $7/ton, reducing carbon becomes a multi-billion dollar industry overnight. 1: http://www.carbontax.org/blog/2008/10/18/a-question-of-balance-finding-the-optimal-carbon-tax-rate/ http://www.carbontax.org/blog/2008/10/18/a-question-of-balan...
  - zaroth 10y ago
    > US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. That's 16.5 tons per man, woman, and child, right? So potentially over $1,000 for a family of 4. > Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The bottom 50% of earners currently pay about 3% of Federal taxes. So if you are planning on replacing the progressive income tax with a carbon tax I think you're going to run into pretty substantial problems with regressive brackets massively increasing taxes on the lower and middle class. Total US emissions were 6.8 billion tons. At $7/ton that's about $50 billion or 1.5% of total Federal tax receipts. Sounds like no big deal, right? But for the bottom 50% it's a $25 billion tax hike on their existing $100 billion bill -- you've just raised taxes 25% on the bottom half. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
    - mseebach 10y ago
      A simple solution could be to cut every man, woman and child a cheque for 1/nth of the carbon tax revenue. The top 50% probably use more than 50% of all the carbon (but are probably also better positioned to cut their emissions in the short term), so it should be fairly progressive, distribution-wise.
iofj 10y ago
Only if also levied on imports in a reasonable way, otherwise it will have the opposite effect. Why ? Because China and all of cheap Asia runs on coal, and that's not going to change quickly. If it is not levied on imports, it is probably better to actually subsidize domestic CO2 production, because it is better and more useful (more useful work/more industrial production) than having that energy in China, and even China is better than the cheapest parts of Asia (Bangladesh, for example).

realityking 10y ago

This. Taxes (and some kinds of regulation like Germany's "fell a tree, plant a tree" rules) are immensely helpful to price externalities into the market.

mseebach 10y ago
Chopping down and burning a tree would incur the carbon tax, so the idea would be that this would incentivise you to plant a new tree. Perhaps planting a tree should incur a negative carbon tax.

bsdetector 10y ago

The question becomes if the taxes are raised high enough to actually impact or reverse climate change, will people abide by them? If it costs $100/day to heat your home in the winter are you going to pay that or buy black market kerosene or just chop down a tree and burn it when no government inspector is around? There's a limit to how much can be done with taxes.

tomp 10y ago
> just chop down a tree and burn it That's the goal, no? Burning oil releases CO2. Growing trees and burning them is carbon neutral.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Kind of - this approach works until you run out of trees, then you have a serious problem. Sub-saharan Africa is experiencing this in places http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80918e/80918E0u.htm http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80918e/80918E0u.ht...
  - Aeolos 10y ago
    Plus, burning trees generates a ton of other harmful particles. It's not a problem if a few people do it during winter time for fun, but it becomes a massive healthcare issue when it generates a suffocating low-lying brown smog carpeting your whole city.
mseebach 10y ago
First, there's no evidence that the carbon tax would have to be so high to be effective - $7-20/ton[1], probably increasing over time. US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The point is to create a clear and simple incentive across the board to switch to low-carbon behaviour, not to raise revenues. Third, nobody promised this would be a quick fix, but nothing is at the moment. But re-jiggering the economy to give a clear incentive is a good start, and even at $7/ton, reducing carbon becomes a multi-billion dollar industry overnight. 1: http://www.carbontax.org/blog/2008/10/18/a-question-of-balance-finding-the-optimal-carbon-tax-rate/ http://www.carbontax.org/blog/2008/10/18/a-question-of-balan...
- zaroth 10y ago
  > US emissions per person is the world highest at 16.5 tons -- that's several hundred dollars per year, not day. That's 16.5 tons per man, woman, and child, right? So potentially over $1,000 for a family of 4. > Second, the revenue from the carbon tax should be fed back to the people by lowering other taxes. It should be net-zero on the government budget. The bottom 50% of earners currently pay about 3% of Federal taxes. So if you are planning on replacing the progressive income tax with a carbon tax I think you're going to run into pretty substantial problems with regressive brackets massively increasing taxes on the lower and middle class. Total US emissions were 6.8 billion tons. At $7/ton that's about $50 billion or 1.5% of total Federal tax receipts. Sounds like no big deal, right? But for the bottom 50% it's a $25 billion tax hike on their existing $100 billion bill -- you've just raised taxes 25% on the bottom half. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
  - mseebach 10y ago
    A simple solution could be to cut every man, woman and child a cheque for 1/nth of the carbon tax revenue. The top 50% probably use more than 50% of all the carbon (but are probably also better positioned to cut their emissions in the short term), so it should be fairly progressive, distribution-wise.

iofj 10y ago

Only if also levied on imports in a reasonable way, otherwise it will have the opposite effect. Why ? Because China and all of cheap Asia runs on coal, and that's not going to change quickly. If it is not levied on imports, it is probably better to actually subsidize domestic CO2 production, because it is better and more useful (more useful work/more industrial production) than having that energy in China, and even China is better than the cheapest parts of Asia (Bangladesh, for example).