7 ms·

The inability of the US to pass a carbon tax will be one of humanities great tragedies. That they are the theoretical champions of the free market is just pilin

by czzr 5y ago

The inability of the US to pass a carbon tax will be one of humanities great tragedies. That they are the theoretical champions of the free market is just piling cruel irony on top of that.

rich_sasha 5y ago
It's not just US. Is there a real carbon tax anywhere at all?
- zejn 5y ago
  It is. EU has CO2 emissions trading at about 50 EUR per ton and rising. Even China has just recently established a national CO2 trading scheme.
  - rich_sasha 5y ago
    I believe the EU has an allowance program too, largely handed out on the basis of CO2 emission, so that would be a bit of a wash.
  - zelphirkalt 5y ago
    Although one should mention that raising that CO2 tax in EU seems to always be an uphill battle against lobbyism and corruption in the EU as well and according to many the CO2 tax is laughably low still. We have a long way to go before we can pat ourselves on the shoulder for a working CO2 tax.
  - ThalesX 5y ago
    This is infuriating for me as an Eastern European… they keep piling taxes and adding expenses. Soon steel and no more ICE cars. Who do you think absorbs the 50€ / ton and rising shock better, a German making 4000€ / month or an East European making 300€ / month? We either go at this together, in a thought out way, or we don’t go at all. The EU distrusts nuclear energy; we’ve been advised against nuclear energy projects. The EU dislikes coal; we’ve been advised against coal. So what can we do? We can’t build nuclear, we can’t work with coal. What do our workers do? Do we just continue to be meat for the betterment of the west? I can’t even imagine the difference between the American standard of living and someone in Africa barely hanging on by a thread. I don’t have a point, I’m sick and tired of being late to the western party (industry? services? startups?) and then we can’t even catch up because the persons in the high castle know better… and now, after burning the world for tens of years, the west is still the saving grace swooping down and imposing global restrictions in order to further protect their lifestyles. Sickening…
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Zagitta 5y ago
      I don't understand your argument, can a western salary better absorb these taxes? Sure but how does imposing CO2 tax "protect their lifestyles"? The tax is based on how much CO2 you produce so rich people who consume more also end up paying more. Furthermore the tax aligns incentives to actually decrease CO2 production by finding greener alternatives. Last but not least pointing fingers at each other for past transgressions does very little to actually help the do or die situation that climate change is rapidly turning into.
      - ThalesX 5y ago
        > I don't understand your argument, can a western salary better absorb these taxes? Yes. And their lifestyle should absorb more of these taxes then just part of the money they produce at present time. We have dozens of nations each with their contribution scheme, it’s not so easy to measure opportunity and lifestyle. My Danish friend pays 60% of his salary in taxes and enjoys a great life, like most of his conationals. In other EU countries, taxes are more lax and personal wealth is maybe higher but the infrastructure holding it together less consuming… > Sure but how does imposing CO2 tax "protect their lifestyles"? The tax is based on how much CO2 you produce so rich people who consume more also end up paying more. EVERYONE needs a home. When the EU increases tarrifs on coal and steel without encouraging local production, they are in fact reducing the housing availability for low income people… such as in Eastern Europe. Economically forcing some of us to move westward so we can produce more money so we can afford certain lifestyle options thus building the great pyramid of western economies. > Furthermore the tax aligns incentives to actually decrease CO2 production by finding greener alternatives. We have insanely lucrative European Projects that could be used to encourage this. We don’t need taxes to innovate, we need oportunities… which are not as evenly spread out as one might expect. > Last but not least pointing fingers at each other for past transgressions does very little to actually help the do or die situation that climate change is rapidly turning into. Neither is imposing taxes on my great grandma that has the CO2 imprint less than my cat. And I wholeheartedly disagree that pointing fingers does not help. Are we supposed to just forget that countries have built their whole wealth on exploiting others and now SHOULD work harder and reduce their lifestyle in order to compensate for the hundreds of years of global resource extraction? A new clean pass? It’s exactly what I find horrendous about this approach.
- nix23 5y ago
  It is, for example in Switzerland, but it's a bad joke in many ways, the most important for me is: If you have make a carbon emission high product, you rather change the production country (to a less controlled country, where you even can trow your waste water into a river) then to research the next 20 years on new technology. And the income from the tax goes to insurance company's and Rent rather then to green projects..it's just another tax without any meaning: https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/info-specialists/reduction-measures/co2-levy/redistribution.html https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/info-s...
  - labawi 5y ago
    Reading the linked document, why do you think it goes to insurance and rent? AFAICT, 1/3 is used for renovations and renewables. 2/3 is redistributed to residents and companies. Residents get their share via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference.
    - nix23 5y ago
      AHV = rent >via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference. The difference is huge, in the time between income and give it to the citizens you can make huge amounts of money with it.
      - labawi 5y ago
        AHV - quoting from your linked article: "in proportion to the settled AHV payroll of their employees" I'm not sure how you equate AHV with rent, as it seems to be a social security / retirement system, and furthermore I'm under the impression that it's only used for the payroll data, with the money going to employers. As for making huge amounts of money while holding money (around 87CHF * 8M for <1 year?) - is it really that huge and aren't they already holding orders of magnitude more money?
- Gigachad 5y ago
  There was in Australia for a short time. The topic has become poisoned though and it will be very hard to bring back with newscorp still running things.
- OJFord 5y ago
  Road tax (levied on road-worthy vehicles) in the UK, and I'm sure elsewhere, has been tiered by emissions for decades. London also has had the congestion charge and now ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ) for driving through with inefficient (and now with almost anything) per day. I know that's not quite what you meant, but I think it's probably more feasible to have multiple specific things like that than an overall tax somehow? Even for companies, forcing them to account for their carbon footprint, auditing it, etc. just seems like it'd be more 'busywork' and open to loopholes to me than 'just' taxing specific purchases or activities.
- it_citizen 5y ago
  British Columbia implemented one with redistribution of revenue to the population in 2008. Canada implemented it at the federal level in 2018. It is probably the closest implementation to the bill proposed to the congress this fall: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307...
zthrowaway 5y ago
What’s with the hyperbole when this topic is discussed every time? It doesn’t add weight to your argument after a certain point. With the US being no where near China and India in CO2 production I think it’ll be fine. You can sleep safe and sound at night.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >With the US being no where near China and India in CO2 production I think it’ll be fine. Until you look at per capita consumption.
  - A_non_e-moose 5y ago
    The per capita argument makes sense from a human perspective, even for any culture globally, as it is an appeal to fairness and equality. However, the natural phenomena governing the planet's weather does not care about anything other than absolute CO2. Fair or not, absolute CO2 is the number that matters for the planet. We can come up with a mitigation or fairness mechanism, but in the end the planet works just like a virus or a script, it's a complex mechanism that you cannot negotiate or reason with.
    - ninkendo 5y ago
      The planet also doesn’t care about political borders; it doesn’t make sense to say “this arbitrary geographic area has more CO2 than this arbitrary area, so therefore the latter area is ‘fine’”.
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        This seems so obvious I can’t understand why people continue to compare country emissions. Break China into two countries and suddenly they are no longer at the top. Or look at the US by individual states instead and each state is way down the list, so no problem.
    - mistermann 5y ago

by czzr 5y ago

The inability of the US to pass a carbon tax will be one of humanities great tragedies. That they are the theoretical champions of the free market is just piling cruel irony on top of that.

rich_sasha 5y ago

It's not just US. Is there a real carbon tax anywhere at all?

zejn 5y ago
It is. EU has CO2 emissions trading at about 50 EUR per ton and rising. Even China has just recently established a national CO2 trading scheme.
- rich_sasha 5y ago
  I believe the EU has an allowance program too, largely handed out on the basis of CO2 emission, so that would be a bit of a wash.
- zelphirkalt 5y ago
  Although one should mention that raising that CO2 tax in EU seems to always be an uphill battle against lobbyism and corruption in the EU as well and according to many the CO2 tax is laughably low still. We have a long way to go before we can pat ourselves on the shoulder for a working CO2 tax.
- ThalesX 5y ago
  This is infuriating for me as an Eastern European… they keep piling taxes and adding expenses. Soon steel and no more ICE cars. Who do you think absorbs the 50€ / ton and rising shock better, a German making 4000€ / month or an East European making 300€ / month? We either go at this together, in a thought out way, or we don’t go at all. The EU distrusts nuclear energy; we’ve been advised against nuclear energy projects. The EU dislikes coal; we’ve been advised against coal. So what can we do? We can’t build nuclear, we can’t work with coal. What do our workers do? Do we just continue to be meat for the betterment of the west? I can’t even imagine the difference between the American standard of living and someone in Africa barely hanging on by a thread. I don’t have a point, I’m sick and tired of being late to the western party (industry? services? startups?) and then we can’t even catch up because the persons in the high castle know better… and now, after burning the world for tens of years, the west is still the saving grace swooping down and imposing global restrictions in order to further protect their lifestyles. Sickening…
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Zagitta 5y ago
    I don't understand your argument, can a western salary better absorb these taxes? Sure but how does imposing CO2 tax "protect their lifestyles"? The tax is based on how much CO2 you produce so rich people who consume more also end up paying more. Furthermore the tax aligns incentives to actually decrease CO2 production by finding greener alternatives. Last but not least pointing fingers at each other for past transgressions does very little to actually help the do or die situation that climate change is rapidly turning into.
    - ThalesX 5y ago
      > I don't understand your argument, can a western salary better absorb these taxes? Yes. And their lifestyle should absorb more of these taxes then just part of the money they produce at present time. We have dozens of nations each with their contribution scheme, it’s not so easy to measure opportunity and lifestyle. My Danish friend pays 60% of his salary in taxes and enjoys a great life, like most of his conationals. In other EU countries, taxes are more lax and personal wealth is maybe higher but the infrastructure holding it together less consuming… > Sure but how does imposing CO2 tax "protect their lifestyles"? The tax is based on how much CO2 you produce so rich people who consume more also end up paying more. EVERYONE needs a home. When the EU increases tarrifs on coal and steel without encouraging local production, they are in fact reducing the housing availability for low income people… such as in Eastern Europe. Economically forcing some of us to move westward so we can produce more money so we can afford certain lifestyle options thus building the great pyramid of western economies. > Furthermore the tax aligns incentives to actually decrease CO2 production by finding greener alternatives. We have insanely lucrative European Projects that could be used to encourage this. We don’t need taxes to innovate, we need oportunities… which are not as evenly spread out as one might expect. > Last but not least pointing fingers at each other for past transgressions does very little to actually help the do or die situation that climate change is rapidly turning into. Neither is imposing taxes on my great grandma that has the CO2 imprint less than my cat. And I wholeheartedly disagree that pointing fingers does not help. Are we supposed to just forget that countries have built their whole wealth on exploiting others and now SHOULD work harder and reduce their lifestyle in order to compensate for the hundreds of years of global resource extraction? A new clean pass? It’s exactly what I find horrendous about this approach.
nix23 5y ago
It is, for example in Switzerland, but it's a bad joke in many ways, the most important for me is: If you have make a carbon emission high product, you rather change the production country (to a less controlled country, where you even can trow your waste water into a river) then to research the next 20 years on new technology. And the income from the tax goes to insurance company's and Rent rather then to green projects..it's just another tax without any meaning: https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/info-specialists/reduction-measures/co2-levy/redistribution.html https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/info-s...
- labawi 5y ago
  Reading the linked document, why do you think it goes to insurance and rent? AFAICT, 1/3 is used for renovations and renewables. 2/3 is redistributed to residents and companies. Residents get their share via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference.
  - nix23 5y ago
    AHV = rent >via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference. The difference is huge, in the time between income and give it to the citizens you can make huge amounts of money with it.
    - labawi 5y ago
      AHV - quoting from your linked article: "in proportion to the settled AHV payroll of their employees" I'm not sure how you equate AHV with rent, as it seems to be a social security / retirement system, and furthermore I'm under the impression that it's only used for the payroll data, with the money going to employers. As for making huge amounts of money while holding money (around 87CHF * 8M for <1 year?) - is it really that huge and aren't they already holding orders of magnitude more money?
Gigachad 5y ago
There was in Australia for a short time. The topic has become poisoned though and it will be very hard to bring back with newscorp still running things.
OJFord 5y ago
Road tax (levied on road-worthy vehicles) in the UK, and I'm sure elsewhere, has been tiered by emissions for decades. London also has had the congestion charge and now ultra-low emissions zone (ULEZ) for driving through with inefficient (and now with almost anything) per day. I know that's not quite what you meant, but I think it's probably more feasible to have multiple specific things like that than an overall tax somehow? Even for companies, forcing them to account for their carbon footprint, auditing it, etc. just seems like it'd be more 'busywork' and open to loopholes to me than 'just' taxing specific purchases or activities.
it_citizen 5y ago
British Columbia implemented one with redistribution of revenue to the population in 2008. Canada implemented it at the federal level in 2018. It is probably the closest implementation to the bill proposed to the congress this fall: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307...

zthrowaway 5y ago

What’s with the hyperbole when this topic is discussed every time? It doesn’t add weight to your argument after a certain point. With the US being no where near China and India in CO2 production I think it’ll be fine. You can sleep safe and sound at night.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
>With the US being no where near China and India in CO2 production I think it’ll be fine. Until you look at per capita consumption.
- A_non_e-moose 5y ago
  The per capita argument makes sense from a human perspective, even for any culture globally, as it is an appeal to fairness and equality. However, the natural phenomena governing the planet's weather does not care about anything other than absolute CO2. Fair or not, absolute CO2 is the number that matters for the planet. We can come up with a mitigation or fairness mechanism, but in the end the planet works just like a virus or a script, it's a complex mechanism that you cannot negotiate or reason with.
  - ninkendo 5y ago
    The planet also doesn’t care about political borders; it doesn’t make sense to say “this arbitrary geographic area has more CO2 than this arbitrary area, so therefore the latter area is ‘fine’”.
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      This seems so obvious I can’t understand why people continue to compare country emissions. Break China into two countries and suddenly they are no longer at the top. Or look at the US by individual states instead and each state is way down the list, so no problem.
  - mistermann 5y ago