Basically, it's a plan for a carbon tax along with a rebate program (similar to UBI in my opinion) so that the least well off financially don't get crushed by things like higher gas prices.
Basically, it's a plan for a carbon tax along with a rebate program (similar to UBI in my opinion) so that the least well off financially don't get crushed by things like higher gas prices.
But because we can now spend the money on other things instead, we might find that it's worth buying the electric car instead of the gas car.
People won't be forced into rapidly giving up their current patterns of life and work. It also avoids objections from conservatives about creating more governmental regulations, subsidies, complicated carbon credits, and interest groups. And like the very popular Social Security it's simple to explain.
For concreteness, you would get $300 per month. That would equal the increase in prices you'd see at the gas pump, your electric bill, and in products. Change nothing and nothing in your life changes. Replace these higher priced carbon intensive products with better alternatives and you have extra money you can spend on other stuff.
That doesn’t make sense though. What’s the incentive to switch to a lower carbon tax if you get all of the tax rebated to you at the end of the month? If you don’t get it all back, then it’s not equal to the price increases.
Now, a fun wrinkle is that on average, most of us are below average. Sorry, joke. What I mean is that the median output is below the average output. That's because it's not a linear curve, but a slope where the byper-wealthy have disproportionate weight. So because the median is below the average, it's also a progressive scheme in that the majority of participants will be at break-even or better.
(If everyone does this, the carbon dividend would of course decrease, but by then the goal will have been reached.)
You'd think everybody could get behind it, right? I got $300 on my tax rebate as an advance for this year's carbon pricing.
Of course the conservatives hate it, because their carbon plan is "no."
And they're on track to win in November.
However, in practice, I am still yet to see a right-wing party that gives a damn about the environment. Be it at the European level, national level, regional level or even at the city level. Go to any random city in my region, read the platform of left-wing parties, and you will typically see bike lanes, bus lanes, pedestrianization, etc. Read the platform of right-wing parties, and you will see more asphalt, more lanes, more parking spaces. City-level elections are supposed to be much more about the candidate, and less about the party, but they still spontaneously group like that.
It shouldn't be like that, and maybe in some other countries it's not like that, I'm not claiming this is universal. But in my country, it certainly is like that.