What if they tax me back in revenge (hello donald)? just jump 10x their tariff.
Don't call me protectionist: the wolrd economy acts like a a supercomputer after all, and we need to rebalance the production economy to places where CO2 matters.
The big issue with that is that it won't work with the US. The US is a huge economy that is not export driven. China has a huge economy, but it is export driven and retaliatory tariffs would be absolutely crippling. The heart of the EU economy is Germany, and they are hugely export driven, so are thus very vulnerable to US retaliatory tariffs.
Finally, the US has the trump card of global military reach. What would the EU do if at the end of an escalating trade war, the US Navy blockaded the EU's various ocean ports? This by the way was the historical strategy of the British with regard to continental European rivals like Napolean or Hitler and it caused them major damage at little comparative cost to the British.
The truth is that when all is said and done, the US can inflict a lot more pain globally, than others can inflict on it.
This will just start _yet another_ trade war with constantly-escalating tariffs. Current American president notwithstanding, you'll be putting world leaders in a position of "losing face" unless they constantly raise you. The better part of the world's nations have cultures in which such a loss would be political suicide. This is the reason why the situation with china has been so difficult to resolve.
The better solution is to create a better solution. Renewable energy is rapidly becoming cheaper and will eventually become cheaper than coal or gas. Nuclear is already an option; it has very high capex but is cheaper long-term; the problem is a stubborn bureaucracy. Let the market build something better and the problem will solve itself because using less stuff is more sustainable and cheaper.
Well, a caveat: if the scofflaw country is selling you luxuries probably they suffer from the tariff. If they are the sole or chief supplier of the good/service and it is a necessary good/service, then you're just causing trouble inside your own borders: your citizens pay the cost of the tariff. Maybe you can use this revenue stream to make your economy greener, but you're still keeping the change inside your borders.
With carbon tariffs the entire point is to reduce import of CO2 intensive products. The only failure criteria is if people abolish the CO2 tax/tariff.
that's not a catch, that's the whole point. It's not just a punishment for the countries that are polluting, it's also a punishment for people who externalize their pollution by buying from countries that are polluting. Putting all the responsibility on third-world countries doing the manufacturing and none on the consumers who buy whithout concern for where their products come from is the whole problem. the consumer nations should bear the burden of sustainable production just as much if not more than the producer nations.
Trump's tariffs are dumb because they ignore the impact on the consumer, but that doesn't mean tariffs are bad. A tariff on pollution means we stop externalizing that cost. If we pay the cost of pollution, it makes non-polluting alternatives economically viable.
"Your own" citizens bear the burden of higher prices from that country, but this is a desired outcome: goods that have higher externalities should cost more. That's the whole point of a carbon tax.
And unless a country really has a lock on a resource, higher tariffs ought to mean the products start being produced in the host country, which is good because it will be being made under the better carbon policies.
Tariffs are dumb when they're enacted out of spite, enacted out of some false sense of balance, or enacted as a short-term bandaid to try and prop up a failing local industry. But in the case of carbon taxes and policies, they would seem to do exactly the right thing: discourage consumption and production of carbon-heavy resources.