5 ms·

Lots of Western countries have heavy tax on gasoline. This passes the cost for the externality on to the taxi owner instead of the customer, but comes to pretty

Lots of Western countries have heavy tax on gasoline. This passes the cost for the externality on to the taxi owner instead of the customer, but comes to pretty much the same thing.

Tepix 8y ago
Yet none (?) have a tax on kerosine. Which is arguably worse for the environment for multiple reasons. Airplanes are a lot less efficient than buses, ships or trains. Also airplanes release their exhausts up in the atmosphere which is worse for global warming.
- dmurray 8y ago
  There are lots of taxes (and subsidies) on air transport, and no real alternative to fossil fuels for powering planes. Adding a kerosene tax - instead of, say, a "landing tax" or a grant of land to build an airport - would just slosh the money around a bit, it wouldn't create an incentive for people to take electric planes.
  - hamilyon2 8y ago
    Some alternatives are skyping, VR and bullet trains.
- pjc50 8y ago
  There's a problem in that it's effectively banned by international treaty as part of the ICAO. I believe people are working on changing this but it will be slow going.
  - benj111 8y ago
    The UK has the Air Passenger Duty. Which is kind of similar (you are charged more for flying a farther distance). So there are ways of structuring it legally.
    - isostatic 8y ago
      Not great, as it's passenger based there's no incentive to fly on a cleaner plane, or on a busier plane. A 747 that's only 25% full will cost the same as a 787 that's 99% full.
  - gonvaled 8y ago
    It requires full international cooperation, otherwise carries will tend to tank where taxes are lower. Not that that is always possible: if you land in Frankfurt and your deposit is empty, you will still need to tank in Frankfurt. But, without international cooperation, fly routes could become distorted because of kerosine tax effects.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - mcv 8y ago
      Doing it just on internal EU flights would already make a big difference.
adrianN 8y ago
The taxes for gasoline are way below the cost of pulling the CO2 back from the atmosphere, so they don't pass the full cost of the externality on the owner.
- mcv 8y ago
  I wouldn't mind if we had a slowly increasing tax on all fossil fuels, that grew slowly to the full cost of pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Then use the revenues from that tax to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. That creates a tax incentive as well as a new industry to fix the problem. Grow slowly so not to immediately cripple the industry, but long before the tax reaches 100% of the cost, will most people have switched to something cleaner.

Lots of Western countries have heavy tax on gasoline. This passes the cost for the externality on to the taxi owner instead of the customer, but comes to pretty much the same thing.

Tepix 8y ago

Yet none (?) have a tax on kerosine. Which is arguably worse for the environment for multiple reasons. Airplanes are a lot less efficient than buses, ships or trains. Also airplanes release their exhausts up in the atmosphere which is worse for global warming.

dmurray 8y ago
There are lots of taxes (and subsidies) on air transport, and no real alternative to fossil fuels for powering planes. Adding a kerosene tax - instead of, say, a "landing tax" or a grant of land to build an airport - would just slosh the money around a bit, it wouldn't create an incentive for people to take electric planes.
- hamilyon2 8y ago
  Some alternatives are skyping, VR and bullet trains.
pjc50 8y ago
There's a problem in that it's effectively banned by international treaty as part of the ICAO. I believe people are working on changing this but it will be slow going.
- benj111 8y ago
  The UK has the Air Passenger Duty. Which is kind of similar (you are charged more for flying a farther distance). So there are ways of structuring it legally.
  - isostatic 8y ago
    Not great, as it's passenger based there's no incentive to fly on a cleaner plane, or on a busier plane. A 747 that's only 25% full will cost the same as a 787 that's 99% full.
- gonvaled 8y ago
  It requires full international cooperation, otherwise carries will tend to tank where taxes are lower. Not that that is always possible: if you land in Frankfurt and your deposit is empty, you will still need to tank in Frankfurt. But, without international cooperation, fly routes could become distorted because of kerosine tax effects.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mcv 8y ago
    Doing it just on internal EU flights would already make a big difference.

adrianN 8y ago

The taxes for gasoline are way below the cost of pulling the CO2 back from the atmosphere, so they don't pass the full cost of the externality on the owner.

mcv 8y ago
I wouldn't mind if we had a slowly increasing tax on all fossil fuels, that grew slowly to the full cost of pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere. Then use the revenues from that tax to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere. That creates a tax incentive as well as a new industry to fix the problem. Grow slowly so not to immediately cripple the industry, but long before the tax reaches 100% of the cost, will most people have switched to something cleaner.