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This is simply rent seeking. It won't reduce flights, it's too small to incentivize any fuel efficiency changes, it's passed on to the consumer so it won't alte

This is simply rent seeking. It won't reduce flights, it's too small to incentivize any fuel efficiency changes, it's passed on to the consumer so it won't alter airline behavior, and while the article claims the revenue will go towards financing trains, it doesn't state how that will be implemented. Are they going to reduce fees on trains accordingly? Are they going to improve train efficiency? Are they going to build additional infrastructure? It's possible that they could do all these things and cause a tiny shift away from air travel toward less-polluting options, but it's more likely just another general tax revenue source that's politically easier to acquire because it's easy to demonize airlines. I'm not defending airlines; they pollute a lot. I just don't see how this helps.

dfilppi 7y ago
Airlines dont pollute. Their customers do.
- usrusr 7y ago
  Depends. I believe that regional feeder connections, where fuel cost is a lower fraction of total expenses than for longer distances would still have a lot of unexplored fuel economy improvement opportunities left. Even speed isn't terribly important there. Unfortunately, due to bigger picture economic incentives, feeder connections would likely be the last to suffer taxation/loss of subsidies.
baud147258 7y ago
Trains in France are State-owned and heavily indebted, so more money would just mean reducing some of that debt; even then, the amount of money expected to be taxed (~200 M€) is nothing compared to the national railway budget, which is around 30-40B €.
perfunctory 7y ago
> I just don't see how this helps. Just curious, what would be your favorite solution(s) of the climate crisis?
- rocgf 7y ago
  Ideally, with absolutely no loss of comfort, no extra taxes, while maintaining our current wasteful lifestyles. We can barely get people to sort their trash into plastics/glass/paper before throwing it away and we say stuff like "I just don't see how this [measure that introduces taxes which would make people less likely to book flights] helps". And this is in a place like Hacker News, which is supposed to sort of towards the tail end of the human intelligence distribution. Day by day, I'm starting to think we are royally fucked.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Not GP, but any action that does not occur at a global level is nothing more than a feel-good measure. You're kidding yourself if you think that this, or even this multiplied across all of Europe would make a dent in climate change. Meanwhile, it allows people to feel like they're doing something, reducing the likelihood that we will actually see a globally coordinated effort to really change direction on the climate.
  - caymanjim 7y ago
    Exactly. It's like recycling. It lets people feel like they're doing something, raises prices, but doesn't actually achieve any of the objectives used to market it. If you want to reduce pollution, regulate it, cap it, and provide penalties for breaching limits that far outweigh the profits for cheaters. Simply taxing everything never changes behavior.
la_barba 7y ago
It should be easy to see what happened to the tax revenue in the budget numbers. Large taxes and fees are risky. Governments are usually careful to not put an entire industry (including thousands of jobs) at risk of overnight collapse. Also, airlines already benefit from aviation fuel tax exemptions (to the tune of billions of dollars). Maybe we should be looking at slowly getting rid of those too.

dfilppi 7y ago

Airlines dont pollute. Their customers do.

usrusr 7y ago
Depends. I believe that regional feeder connections, where fuel cost is a lower fraction of total expenses than for longer distances would still have a lot of unexplored fuel economy improvement opportunities left. Even speed isn't terribly important there. Unfortunately, due to bigger picture economic incentives, feeder connections would likely be the last to suffer taxation/loss of subsidies.

baud147258 7y ago

Trains in France are State-owned and heavily indebted, so more money would just mean reducing some of that debt; even then, the amount of money expected to be taxed (~200 M€) is nothing compared to the national railway budget, which is around 30-40B €.

perfunctory 7y ago

> I just don't see how this helps. Just curious, what would be your favorite solution(s) of the climate crisis?

rocgf 7y ago
Ideally, with absolutely no loss of comfort, no extra taxes, while maintaining our current wasteful lifestyles. We can barely get people to sort their trash into plastics/glass/paper before throwing it away and we say stuff like "I just don't see how this [measure that introduces taxes which would make people less likely to book flights] helps". And this is in a place like Hacker News, which is supposed to sort of towards the tail end of the human intelligence distribution. Day by day, I'm starting to think we are royally fucked.
0xffff2 7y ago
Not GP, but any action that does not occur at a global level is nothing more than a feel-good measure. You're kidding yourself if you think that this, or even this multiplied across all of Europe would make a dent in climate change. Meanwhile, it allows people to feel like they're doing something, reducing the likelihood that we will actually see a globally coordinated effort to really change direction on the climate.
- caymanjim 7y ago
  Exactly. It's like recycling. It lets people feel like they're doing something, raises prices, but doesn't actually achieve any of the objectives used to market it. If you want to reduce pollution, regulate it, cap it, and provide penalties for breaching limits that far outweigh the profits for cheaters. Simply taxing everything never changes behavior.

la_barba 7y ago

It should be easy to see what happened to the tax revenue in the budget numbers. Large taxes and fees are risky. Governments are usually careful to not put an entire industry (including thousands of jobs) at risk of overnight collapse. Also, airlines already benefit from aviation fuel tax exemptions (to the tune of billions of dollars). Maybe we should be looking at slowly getting rid of those too.