> Any country that tries to make its people pay the actual cost of their emissions without the rest of the world doing the same will quickly see regime change b

> Any country that tries to make its people pay the actual cost of their emissions without the rest of the world doing the same will quickly see regime change because people aren't gonna waste a bunch of resources pissing in the wind like that. Yes it is the classic tragedy of the commons scenario, and frequently that is the argument brought up whenever countries talk about climate change action. "Why should I reduce my emissions if China/India/United States doesn't". That is certainly a hurdle to correctly pricing CO2 emissions but I don't know that the hurdle is insurmountable or that that the hurdle won't get lower with time. We've seen a lot more popular support behind climate change action in just the last 2 or 3 years. Even then, in order for us to meet the challenge we have to start making the argument to people that we can either experience temporary discomfort now, or massive misery in the future. I think the average person really doesn't grasp the severity of the threat, so it makes it very difficult for them to make that value judgement. > If emission are cheap to remove then it's going to be easier to get everyone to pay and the fact that some "emissions havens" won't pay will be a non issue because picking up the slack will be cheap enough. In order to tax emissions at what it costs to dispose of them the cost of disposing of them needs to be cheaper. Clearly we should be pursuing carbon sequestration technology and trying to find ways to make it cheaper. Maybe right now, today, pricing in the full cost of carbon removal in a fossil fuels tax wouldn't be economically viable. But at the very least, we should be pricing in some significant portion of it if possible. That is a political question that will have to be played out in countries across the globe.