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In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money

• dukoid 5y ago
  I wish there had been three polls instead: One for gas, one for heating and one for flights... O:)
  • loonster 5y ago
    I would expect all 3 would have passed then. Each of the proposals likely has slightly different demographics of people that are opposed to it. 1 % margin isnt much to overcome.
• jlawson 5y ago
  >improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. What does "improve heating" mean? How does "direct pay to poor citizens" help climate change? Perhaps the law wasn't really about climate change, but was another one of those times where policy someone wanted anyway was being pushed with climate change as an excuse. In any case I can't form an opinion on this vote result without knowing what was actually being voted on.
  • sofixa 5y ago
    > What does "improve heating" mean? Not Swiss, so this is mostly conjecture, but what is usually included in those types of proposals is to improve housing insulation and the heating network ( in the case of central heating, either per building or more central) making them more efficient, thus requiring less energy to achieve the same effect ( people aren't cold in their homes).
• falcolas 5y ago
  The youngest voting population will also be the least wealthy segment of the population, and also the ones most hit by the additional costs. That aside, I don't see from the spend breakdown how it reduces CO2 output. Or, more importantly, how it reduces industrial CO2 output.
• Lammy 5y ago
  > What really killed me was that the youngest part of the population, the ones who will be the most impacted by the climate crisis, voted the strongest against it. Switzerland being one of the richest countries, I cannot understand how an increase of 10% on luxury items (plane tickets) can have this impact. Young people by definition have had the least opportunity to accumulate any wealth. Why is it surprising that people with the least money are the hardest hit by price increases?
  • madengr 5y ago
    Young people HAVE the most opportunity to accumulate wealth. Who will have more wealth at 70 when investing in an S&P 500 index fund? A 10 YO investing $10/month or a 50 YO investing $50/month? The 10 YO will have twice as much wealth while only investing half as much.
• ceilingcorner 5y ago
  The Yellow Vest protests were pretty much caused by increased fuel prices affecting the working class, so it’s not surprising that Switzerland voted to avoid a similar situation.
• asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  What does direct pay to poor citizens have to do with climate change? I've always been told that the best way to do a pigovian tax is to make it revenue neutral. You collect the sin tax, but then your redistribute it based on the average level of tax collected. So someone who uses exactly the average amount of carbon sees no change in buying power. Someone who uses less than average actually sees an increase in buying power. And anyone who uses more than average sees a decrease. The idea here is to allow the cost of decisions to be felt in the wallet, but not hurt the spending power of those who are making climate-conscious purchasing choices.
  • tylerhou 5y ago
    Evenly distributing the revenue assumes the effect of the negative externality (climate change) is evenly distributed. But climate change tends to harm poorer people more than richer people, so it makes sense to distribute more revenue to them.
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      Distributing the revenue is not about compensating for harms. It's about ensuring that you don't have a net impact on people who are using the typical amount of energy. The idea is that the tax captures the externalized costs of economic actions, like emitting carbon. Once the cost of the actions is fully priced in, it is reasoned, consumption will decrease to the optimal level given the harm done by consumption. The biggest problem with this idea is that we don't really know what the costs are going to be. In practice, poor people would be beneficiaries of a externality-capturing tax, because by and large, rich people use a lot more carbon. More flights, bigger cars, bigger houses, etc.
      • tylerhou 5y ago
        You're right that you don't need to compensate for harms with such a tax (so my first sentence was imprecise). But I also don't see what's wrong with attempting to distribute (some of) the revenue in such a way to compensate for harms.
• truenamenofame 5y ago
  The young and poor can't afford to increase their cost of living even further. We're already burdened with debt, a shitty job market, unable to afford housing, and are having trouble even finding love and having children. I don't know how much more people expect us to sacrifice. Newsflash, this generation has fucking nothing left to give.
  • deregulateMed 5y ago
    Are you a swedish citizen?
    • tmathmeyer 5y ago
      You've mentioned "swedish" twice now in the context of Switzerland. You've got them confused.
      • deregulateMed 5y ago
        Oops
  • AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    A generational tax. Very interesting. Better get it in before that generation dies and everyone plays the "who do you blame? they're all dead" game like with native american genocide, slavery, etc.
  • jdavis703 5y ago
    I don’t know where you live, but there is still more to loose. Hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest because of a recent heatwave, many more lost hours at work because businesses were closed down. Adapting to this will require households and businesses purchase air conditioners and utilities will need to update infrastructure to support increased energy demands. All that will lead to increased financial demands on people and businesses. Like it or not, we’re all paying for global warming one way or the other.
    • 5y ago
• heavyset_go 5y ago
  The young and poor are not responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions, while the ownership class and the industries they own and control are.
  • 8note 5y ago
    The young gain a whole ton from their ancestors green house gas emissions. Consider it an inheritance to match their quality of life.
    • heavyset_go 5y ago
      Turns out that greenhouse gas emissions are proof that trickle down economics works, but it's just CO2 that trickles down and not money.
• tdfx 5y ago
  This actually seems very reasonable. Due to its size, no unilateral action taken by Switzerland is going to have any meaningful effect on world CO2 output. Kneecapping your population with taxes and restrictions that cannot have any meaningful result is just performative activism to make a certain segment of the population feel better. For any movement on fighting climate change, you have to deliver short term results. Investing in technology is the clearest path to doing this. Clean power generation, optimized fuel efficiency, and most importantly, carbon sequestration are things that can make a real difference for the climate and also provide economic ROI. I don't understand why this isn't the larger focus. Where's the "Manhattan project" proposal for carbon sequestration?