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Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. If you've build your life around no carbon tax (e.g. you live far from wo
by hardtke 5y ago
Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. If you've build your life around no carbon tax (e.g. you live far from work and need to drive) you will personally suffer from such a change and will vocally lobby against the change. We end up with things like the Yellow Vest movement in France or the political instability that happens when any government tries to reduce fuel subsidies. It seems that voters are more sensitive to the price of gas than any other issue and any political party that causes the price of gas to go up gets voted out of office. Paul Krugman wrote a post recently showing that US consumers' inflation expectation exactly tracks the price of gas. I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We need subsidies (both explicit and hidden) to reduce our carbon emissions.
- stormbrew 5y ago> Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. <...> I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We have a carbon tax in Canada and it's probably not going away any time soon (it is, in fact, scheduled to continue going up), so I'm not sure what you mean here. The provinces can do a rebate/dividend if they want and/or run their own system designed that way but I'm not sure if any have. I'm not sure if your first statement is just saying we abandoned a rebate, but your last statement implies you think any consumer carbon pricing is impossible regardless of that, while your example says otherwise.