Why wouldn't we don't adopt a similar system for carbon? The fiscal framework would be very similar. This way a company wouldn't have to know how much carbon have been produced by its suppliers; it only need to count its own.
Unfortunately I can't imagine how diplomacy could achieve something like that, given the extremely uneven distribution of resource extraction industries. Despite that it wouldn't even hurt the big oil nations, considering that they would not have a lot of difficulties passing on the cost to their buyers (assuming full global enforcement). The biggest logical opponents would not be oil/gas states like Saudi Arabia or Russia but those whose only domestic geological energy sources is carbon-inefficient coal.
(Edit: cleared up some illegible grammar and editing clutter)
Still adding a large carbon tax directly at the source gives us pretty much the best bang-for-the-buck. It would have to be combined with deforestation taxes too otherwise you'll see countries like Brazil go into overdrive to export "green fuel".
You can still tax resource extraction industries in your country and importers of energy resources (if country of origin has lower carbon tax than your country).
This is already done for income tax. You are taxed on your foreign income but you can deduce the tax you already paid to foreign country.
This could impact your exports but with the money from carbon tax you could lessen the tax burden on manufacturers of your exports or even finance them directly.
In short, some people can afford to pay for climate change fixes, and some can't. Any solution will simply have to be progressive and have a fair, equal burden on everyone.
Maybe there's other ways to make it better for the people who can't afford it - a tax free allowance they can claim back or similar.
I'm still not sure if this is feasible across borders though. How can you stop carbon tax havens?
However, I am afraid it is not a question of implementation, but of dealing with vested interests.
What makes you think they need to allow a carbon tax for that? They seem to be doing fairly well at lowering those how they want to without any concessions?
I founded a start-up in Europe, and most of my accounting costs are recovering VAT on business expenses. There's an argument that VAT is an efficient tax because businesses basically have to self administer it, but my take is that the cost is hidden because the burden is pushed onto business.
Compare this to the UK, where there's massive sets of exclusions and several different rates in force. Takeaway vs dine-in food, digital vs physical books, ... a total mess.
The wikipedia article says this:
> A carbon tax is also an indirect tax—a tax on a transaction—as opposed to a direct tax, which taxes income. A carbon tax is called a price instrument, since it sets a price for carbon dioxide emissions.[22] In economic theory, pollution is considered a negative externality, a negative effect on a third party not directly involved in a transaction, and is a type of market failure.
That sounds close to what you describe.
Carbon tax will not solve climate change, it'll only be another money grab.
It's a very progressive tax and will be extremely effective. Which is why the neo-Republicans have fought against it (despite it originally being an old-Republicans idea).
anything the government gets their greasy hands on instantly becomes the most inefficient and cost overrun thing on the face of the earth. Hasn't their track record proven it by far and large?
We need combustibles to become more expensive (because markets don't act well if the true cost is hidden) and government is actually the only entity that can do that, that has a chance of not bleeding us dry and creating bloodsucking monstrosity in the process.
The day-to-day stuff is generally more efficient: that's why the US's private healthcare system is extremely expensive when compared to the UK's public healthcare system (evan at times when the latter was properly funded).