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“Normal people” don’t have to put pressure for this to work. Every point along the supply chain absorbs the price signal and will find cheaper (ie less CO2-pro
by theptip 4y ago
“Normal people” don’t have to put pressure for this to work.
Every point along the supply chain absorbs the price signal and will find cheaper (ie less CO2-producing) options where possible, raising the price a little. Where not possible the price goes up by the full CO2 tax amount. (In other words if it’s still the cheapest option to just pay the extra tax, like jet fuel, then the price just goes up.)
The consumer might hypothetically not get any different choices, but still see a CO2 tax cause all deliveries to use electric trucks, for example.
Consumers “putting pressure on companies” is a terrible way to fix this problem because few consumers have a clear picture of the current landscape of CO2 intensity and possible best fixes across the whole economy. But if you just price the externality in, then the market constraint-solves the problem for you.
(To be clear I don’t think markets are perfect, they are just much better than human coordinators at solving this class of problem.)
- vasco 4y agoTaxing carbon is fine, that isn't the problem, the problem is giving that money to the current generation in the form of payouts. Why should a random citizen get paid more just because in their country there's heavily polluting industries? It makes no sense.
- kilotaras 4y ago> Why should a random citizen get paid more just because in their country there's heavily polluting industries? It makes no sense. I'm not following. Random citizen also pays more in tax.
- yellowapple 4y ago> Why should a random citizen get paid more just because in their country there's heavily polluting industries? Because everyone - including that random citizen - experiences harm from said heavy pollution. That's my air being contaminated, my water being poisoned, my planet being wrecked; by what rationale would I somehow not be justified in demanding compensation for that harm?
- imtringued 4y agoGiving everyone a single vote in democracy makes no sense, we should just air drop paper pamphlets all across the country and let anyone who collects them vote once for each pamphlet. If they fall on privately owned land, the owner of the land gets all of the pamphlets.
- theptip 4y agoAh I see, so is your concern that we aren’t putting that revenue to work on explicitly decarbonizing projects to invest in the future? Or is it more that you think there is a perverse incentive where residents might prefer e.g. a cement factory to move to their country because it will result in more CO2 rebate?