I'm not saying it's a livable income. I don't think there's anything in in the definition of "income" that says a person needs to be able to live off it. It just means money that comes in. Anyway, the prefix mini should indicate that it's smaller than normal UBI.
>The payments are just a way to soften the blow of the tax, but the reality is that it would disproportionately impact those lower on the income scale, especially in climates that require significant A/C
Why? Wouldn't the poor person use less A/C than the rich person? The the poor person would overall profit from it.
>That means you pay more tax as a fraction of income the lower your income.
Sure, but paying the money back a fixed amount per person leads to an even more extreme fraction of income of money gained by the poor people. You've got a regressive tax (carbon tax), then a much more regressive tax (fixed dollar amount per person). Except the second one is a negative tax, so overall the 2 taxes together are progressive.