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I've been saying this for years, but I finally get why "Just. Tax. It." doesn't work. The voters. They turn out in droves when it comes to taxes on something as

I've been saying this for years, but I finally get why "Just. Tax. It." doesn't work. The voters. They turn out in droves when it comes to taxes on something as visible as the price they pay at the pump or when it comes to the oil patch in Alberta. It's politically easier to create import duties or to go into debt and subsidize things. The level of taxation we need to stop a complete catastrophe is higher than people will put up with in most of the world.

FinanceAnon 5y ago
True, Switzerland (who I view as a "green" and progressive country) recently voted against those taxes in a referendum. I think it would be much worse in other countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57457384 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57457384
- WitCanStain 5y ago
  Switzerland is very conservative, I'm not all that surprised if it didn't pass.
  - FinanceAnon 5y ago
    I am not an expert on Swiss politics/demographics, but if you search for "the most liberal countries in the world" they consistently come up in top 10 (for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_World_Liberty_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_World_Liberty_Index) Prostitution is legal, abortion is legal, and they have pilot trials for "cannabis clubs"
    - adamors 5y ago
      Comment you're responding to probably didn't mean American conservative. Most conservatives support abortion in the EU, it's the far-right that doesn't.
    - __bjoernd 5y ago
      Indeed, Switzerland is very conservative. Like in every other country you have a divide between the progressive/liberal/young-ish big cities (Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, Basel, ...) and the conservative/old-ish rest of the country (great skylines, very low population density). And then you look at the actual rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative_(Switzerland)#Federal_popular_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative_(Switzerlan...): "A double majority of people and cantons is required to change the constitution." --> Swiss cantons are split up historically, not by population, similar to US states. The conservative, low-pop cantons can hold the progressives hostage on anything they don't like because even if you get the liberal cities behind you that is still way beyond the majority of cantons.
- rcpt 5y ago
  Switzerland, like California, is a direct democracy. Taxes that touch the assets of voting demographics fail while taxes that burden non-voting demographics pass.
  - yellow_lead 5y ago
    They are direct and indirect, since both also have legislatures in addition to their referendum / initiative laws.
  - motives 5y ago
    Nit: Switzerland as a country is a semi-direct democracy not a direct democracy. Only 2 cantons fulfil the criteria for the classical definition of direct democracy.
ip26 5y ago
It seems like you could make it popular with a carbon dividend to every citizen. If you use less carbon than average, by god you make money! But most times the tax is proposed, special interests on the left insist the revenue must be spent on <pet cause> & sink the whole effort.
- xkjkls 5y ago
  lol the nba lottery tax but for carbon
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  Even when people propose this type of dividend it still doesn't usually work because the people that live in the cities already vote for the measures to curb climate change while the people that live in the sticks aren't going to see enough of a dividend to make up for the extra cost at the pump. Even allocating it by region (i.e., the taxes of a region go to paying for the dividend of the region, and there are larger dividends per person in a region with higher GHG taxes) don't work because too many people are retired or essentially non-commuting, and there are a host of issues around balancing out incentives. For example, a person may move across the street just to get a higher dividend.
  - NumberWangMan 5y ago
    To be fair, if people living in cities tend to have much lower GHG emissions than people living in rural areas, we probably want to have an extra incentive for people to live in cities, right? And even with that, there is a pretty wide variation of emissions levels between consumers in each of these types of regions. You can have a very small town of 100 people that is designed so people can get around without a car. Small towns in Ireland, for example, look very different from small towns in the US -- but we used to build like that, and we can again. If you live out in the sticks, you probably make a lot of unnecessary trips because fuel is cheap, where there is potential to wait and do lots of shopping at once. You can probably insulate your house better, buy an electric water heater, stick solar panels on your house, etc. Farms depend on a lot of machinery that uses fossil fuels right now, which is difficult to change, but could gradually be converted to more efficient energy sources. And actually, the Energy Innovation Act, which is Citizens' Climate Lobby's preferred carbon tax, has an exemption for agriculture -- it's a very small part of emissions, and it's worth it to get more people on board with the bill and get it passed sooner rather than later. And we shouldn't compare an imperfect but still good tax to some unachievable ideal, we should compare it to other real-world solutions, and in that comparison, I think a carbon tax with dividend is probably the fairest and most cost-effective way to quickly cut carbon emissions.
ihsw 5y ago
Most people would be okay with taxes if they decided what it was spent on, it is their money afterall.
Ajedi32 5y ago
That's a fundamental problem with any regulatory measure intended to reduce carbon emissions. Cheap energy is good for the economy. Fossil fuels are cheap. Any attempt to reduce the use of fossil fuels is going to hurt voters in the short term no matter how you package it. Sure, you can try to be sneaky about it, implementing policies that only indirectly impact fossil fuels and hoping the voters don't notice you're the one to blame for the rising price of energy. Or you can be honest, bite the bullet, and try to convince the public a carbon tax is necessary to avoid something even worse down the line. Either way you're fighting an uphill battle.
- m4rtink 5y ago
  You really should not be sneaky about it - some of the populist-or-worse parties here in Europe are already full into "eco-fashist EU is taking away your cars!" together with their usual drivel.
gigel82 5y ago
Start by taxing the big polluters, not individuals. Less than 1/3rd of pollution comes from individuals (and mostly from ICE cars, so incentivize EVs to tackle that), the rest comes from industry so go after the big piece of the pie first. The industry will R&D ways to cut pollution since they'll be financially incentivized to do that, the resulting technology will be later adapted for other applications.
- mastax 5y ago
  Taxing big polluters is taxing consumers. Granted, the indirection should make such a measure more politically feasible.
bertil 5y ago
I agree with you for cars, which is why I think the appropriate approach is to: 1. tax flying, or rather shame airlines who do not compensate aggressively until they all do, and monitor compensation schemes because at the moment, too many are non-sensical blackmail-like counter-factual arguments around cutting forests; 2. ban industrial releases of CO2: all has to be captured and stored; storage is cheap now, so industrials will rather do that than lobby (until storage price go up, but at that points, things will have gotten much uglier); 3. ban new ICE cars, or make those excessively expensive to build: second-hand cars price will explode subsidising current car owners, and opening a wider gap for electric cars. Guarantee loans on electric cars to make them unaffordable cheaper, until the resell value takes over. No need to make gas more expensive: electric cars are cheaper to maintain today. You just have to make it more obvious to buyers.

FinanceAnon 5y ago

True, Switzerland (who I view as a "green" and progressive country) recently voted against those taxes in a referendum. I think it would be much worse in other countries. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57457384 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57457384

WitCanStain 5y ago
Switzerland is very conservative, I'm not all that surprised if it didn't pass.
- FinanceAnon 5y ago
  I am not an expert on Swiss politics/demographics, but if you search for "the most liberal countries in the world" they consistently come up in top 10 (for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_World_Liberty_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_World_Liberty_Index) Prostitution is legal, abortion is legal, and they have pilot trials for "cannabis clubs"
  - adamors 5y ago
    Comment you're responding to probably didn't mean American conservative. Most conservatives support abortion in the EU, it's the far-right that doesn't.
  - __bjoernd 5y ago
    Indeed, Switzerland is very conservative. Like in every other country you have a divide between the progressive/liberal/young-ish big cities (Zurich, Bern, Lausanne, Basel, ...) and the conservative/old-ish rest of the country (great skylines, very low population density). And then you look at the actual rules (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative_(Switzerland)#Federal_popular_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_initiative_(Switzerlan...): "A double majority of people and cantons is required to change the constitution." --> Swiss cantons are split up historically, not by population, similar to US states. The conservative, low-pop cantons can hold the progressives hostage on anything they don't like because even if you get the liberal cities behind you that is still way beyond the majority of cantons.
rcpt 5y ago
Switzerland, like California, is a direct democracy. Taxes that touch the assets of voting demographics fail while taxes that burden non-voting demographics pass.
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  They are direct and indirect, since both also have legislatures in addition to their referendum / initiative laws.
- motives 5y ago
  Nit: Switzerland as a country is a semi-direct democracy not a direct democracy. Only 2 cantons fulfil the criteria for the classical definition of direct democracy.

ip26 5y ago

It seems like you could make it popular with a carbon dividend to every citizen. If you use less carbon than average, by god you make money! But most times the tax is proposed, special interests on the left insist the revenue must be spent on <pet cause> & sink the whole effort.

xkjkls 5y ago
lol the nba lottery tax but for carbon
3pt14159 5y ago
Even when people propose this type of dividend it still doesn't usually work because the people that live in the cities already vote for the measures to curb climate change while the people that live in the sticks aren't going to see enough of a dividend to make up for the extra cost at the pump. Even allocating it by region (i.e., the taxes of a region go to paying for the dividend of the region, and there are larger dividends per person in a region with higher GHG taxes) don't work because too many people are retired or essentially non-commuting, and there are a host of issues around balancing out incentives. For example, a person may move across the street just to get a higher dividend.
- NumberWangMan 5y ago
  To be fair, if people living in cities tend to have much lower GHG emissions than people living in rural areas, we probably want to have an extra incentive for people to live in cities, right? And even with that, there is a pretty wide variation of emissions levels between consumers in each of these types of regions. You can have a very small town of 100 people that is designed so people can get around without a car. Small towns in Ireland, for example, look very different from small towns in the US -- but we used to build like that, and we can again. If you live out in the sticks, you probably make a lot of unnecessary trips because fuel is cheap, where there is potential to wait and do lots of shopping at once. You can probably insulate your house better, buy an electric water heater, stick solar panels on your house, etc. Farms depend on a lot of machinery that uses fossil fuels right now, which is difficult to change, but could gradually be converted to more efficient energy sources. And actually, the Energy Innovation Act, which is Citizens' Climate Lobby's preferred carbon tax, has an exemption for agriculture -- it's a very small part of emissions, and it's worth it to get more people on board with the bill and get it passed sooner rather than later. And we shouldn't compare an imperfect but still good tax to some unachievable ideal, we should compare it to other real-world solutions, and in that comparison, I think a carbon tax with dividend is probably the fairest and most cost-effective way to quickly cut carbon emissions.

ihsw 5y ago

Most people would be okay with taxes if they decided what it was spent on, it is their money afterall.

Ajedi32 5y ago

That's a fundamental problem with any regulatory measure intended to reduce carbon emissions. Cheap energy is good for the economy. Fossil fuels are cheap. Any attempt to reduce the use of fossil fuels is going to hurt voters in the short term no matter how you package it. Sure, you can try to be sneaky about it, implementing policies that only indirectly impact fossil fuels and hoping the voters don't notice you're the one to blame for the rising price of energy. Or you can be honest, bite the bullet, and try to convince the public a carbon tax is necessary to avoid something even worse down the line. Either way you're fighting an uphill battle.

m4rtink 5y ago
You really should not be sneaky about it - some of the populist-or-worse parties here in Europe are already full into "eco-fashist EU is taking away your cars!" together with their usual drivel.

gigel82 5y ago

Start by taxing the big polluters, not individuals. Less than 1/3rd of pollution comes from individuals (and mostly from ICE cars, so incentivize EVs to tackle that), the rest comes from industry so go after the big piece of the pie first. The industry will R&D ways to cut pollution since they'll be financially incentivized to do that, the resulting technology will be later adapted for other applications.

mastax 5y ago
Taxing big polluters is taxing consumers. Granted, the indirection should make such a measure more politically feasible.

bertil 5y ago

I agree with you for cars, which is why I think the appropriate approach is to: 1. tax flying, or rather shame airlines who do not compensate aggressively until they all do, and monitor compensation schemes because at the moment, too many are non-sensical blackmail-like counter-factual arguments around cutting forests; 2. ban industrial releases of CO2: all has to be captured and stored; storage is cheap now, so industrials will rather do that than lobby (until storage price go up, but at that points, things will have gotten much uglier); 3. ban new ICE cars, or make those excessively expensive to build: second-hand cars price will explode subsidising current car owners, and opening a wider gap for electric cars. Guarantee loans on electric cars to make them unaffordable cheaper, until the resell value takes over. No need to make gas more expensive: electric cars are cheaper to maintain today. You just have to make it more obvious to buyers.