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The question is, how do you determine what the CO2 consumption of something is? Do you include only direct emissions? What about emissions incurred during manuf

The question is, how do you determine what the CO2 consumption of something is? Do you include only direct emissions? What about emissions incurred during manufacturing (e.g. for lithium batteries for electric trucks)? The idea seems cool but the execution seems impossible. If you tax only direct emissions you motivate companies to amortize emissions by concentrating them during manufacture. If you tax everything, how do you even begin to count everything that goes into a tomato or loaf of bread?

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
Tax the source. Apply the tax to every coal mine, oil well, managed forest, or any other material that has embodied carbon. These companies will do what they always do, raise prices and pass them on. This trickle down effect should ideally work their way through the economy and incentivize using fewer carbon-emitting sources. Of course there is the question about people that simply _store_ carbon, e.g. what if there's a coal mine where the buyers of the coal don't actually use the coal for its energy purposes but instead for, say, makeup creation, or wood for building? We would probably have to work out special licensing for non-usage purposes and that's where it would probably get tricky.
ericd 5y ago
You tax carbon when it’s added to the carbon cycle, you refund when carbon is verifiably removed from the carbon cycle. The price of all carbon-intensive domestic inputs go up as a result. If something was manufactured abroad without certified paid-for carbon with a process that matches international standards, then a punitive worst-case estimate is applied upon import as a tariff, such that it’s always cheaper to get certified.
tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
Within a country/economic bloc, it's easy: You tax it where it is emitted, starting with the biggest emitting processes first. Anything fuel burning can be taxed via the fuel, very accurately. Stuff like concrete production is harder to tax, but still doable. Hard to measure emissions like methane leaking out from gas wells or cow burps is the hardest to tax accurately, but even if you don't get 100%, it's a good start. Smaller processes that produce CO2 through actual emissions will probably fall through the gaps, but they're not critical in the big picture. Most will be covered through taxes on the fuel or energy. I'd expect most of the electric truck battery emissions to come from energy, either during the assembly of the cells or production of the ingredients. > If you tax only direct emissions you motivate companies to amortize emissions by concentrating them during manufacture. I do not understand. Indirect emissions are direct emissions at some point, and that's where they get taxed. The cost then gets passed along, creating an incentive to either buy from a supplier that can produce the same thing more cheaply by reducing emissions, or finding a substitute product that's cheaper because it's less emissions-intensive to make. The real problem is imports from countries that do not follow an equivalent tax regime. I suppose here approximations will be necessary, and by making them overly generous, other countries have an incentive to join the scheme.
- leereeves 5y ago
  Indirect emissions are direct emissions somewhere, but probably somewhere else under a different tax regime. That electric car battery might be manufactured in China using coal power and shipped over the ocean in a diesel fueled ship and yet pay no tax, making an American-manufactured battery even less competitive.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    This is addressed in the last paragraph. (Import duties based on generous estimates, if the import is from a country that doesn't apply an equivalent model.)
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  Okay, so you have a train carrying 100 shipping containers of varying goods. These goods might have very different densities, weights, and values. Do you tax by weight? But the CO2 is proportional to distance and weight in this case. Do you tax by distance? Some combination of both? Is that combination an accurate representation of the actual CO2 emitted from the transport of each good? What if it's a giant shipping boat with thousands of containers?
  - purjolok 5y ago
    You tax the operator of the train or ship. They will presumably pass on this cost to their customers as they do with any other fixed cost such as boat maintenance, crew salaries, port fees etc.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
      The beauty is, you don't even have to tax the operator directly, as long as the train is traveling between countries participating in the same scheme. The fuel (or power) the train uses has already been taxed, as has the production of the train itself.
      - 5y ago

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

Tax the source. Apply the tax to every coal mine, oil well, managed forest, or any other material that has embodied carbon. These companies will do what they always do, raise prices and pass them on. This trickle down effect should ideally work their way through the economy and incentivize using fewer carbon-emitting sources. Of course there is the question about people that simply _store_ carbon, e.g. what if there's a coal mine where the buyers of the coal don't actually use the coal for its energy purposes but instead for, say, makeup creation, or wood for building? We would probably have to work out special licensing for non-usage purposes and that's where it would probably get tricky.

ericd 5y ago

You tax carbon when it’s added to the carbon cycle, you refund when carbon is verifiably removed from the carbon cycle. The price of all carbon-intensive domestic inputs go up as a result. If something was manufactured abroad without certified paid-for carbon with a process that matches international standards, then a punitive worst-case estimate is applied upon import as a tariff, such that it’s always cheaper to get certified.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago

Within a country/economic bloc, it's easy: You tax it where it is emitted, starting with the biggest emitting processes first. Anything fuel burning can be taxed via the fuel, very accurately. Stuff like concrete production is harder to tax, but still doable. Hard to measure emissions like methane leaking out from gas wells or cow burps is the hardest to tax accurately, but even if you don't get 100%, it's a good start. Smaller processes that produce CO2 through actual emissions will probably fall through the gaps, but they're not critical in the big picture. Most will be covered through taxes on the fuel or energy. I'd expect most of the electric truck battery emissions to come from energy, either during the assembly of the cells or production of the ingredients. > If you tax only direct emissions you motivate companies to amortize emissions by concentrating them during manufacture. I do not understand. Indirect emissions are direct emissions at some point, and that's where they get taxed. The cost then gets passed along, creating an incentive to either buy from a supplier that can produce the same thing more cheaply by reducing emissions, or finding a substitute product that's cheaper because it's less emissions-intensive to make. The real problem is imports from countries that do not follow an equivalent tax regime. I suppose here approximations will be necessary, and by making them overly generous, other countries have an incentive to join the scheme.

leereeves 5y ago
Indirect emissions are direct emissions somewhere, but probably somewhere else under a different tax regime. That electric car battery might be manufactured in China using coal power and shipped over the ocean in a diesel fueled ship and yet pay no tax, making an American-manufactured battery even less competitive.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  This is addressed in the last paragraph. (Import duties based on generous estimates, if the import is from a country that doesn't apply an equivalent model.)
b9a2cab5 5y ago
Okay, so you have a train carrying 100 shipping containers of varying goods. These goods might have very different densities, weights, and values. Do you tax by weight? But the CO2 is proportional to distance and weight in this case. Do you tax by distance? Some combination of both? Is that combination an accurate representation of the actual CO2 emitted from the transport of each good? What if it's a giant shipping boat with thousands of containers?
- purjolok 5y ago
  You tax the operator of the train or ship. They will presumably pass on this cost to their customers as they do with any other fixed cost such as boat maintenance, crew salaries, port fees etc.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
    The beauty is, you don't even have to tax the operator directly, as long as the train is traveling between countries participating in the same scheme. The fuel (or power) the train uses has already been taxed, as has the production of the train itself.
    - 5y ago