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Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

> Airlines [...] benefited from a $100bn (£75bn) subsidy by not paying for the climate damage they caused.

That's a very weird phrasing to use, designed to cause shock and outrage for something that - if I'm deciphering the phrase properly - means "They burnt fuel without paying for the emissions", which as far as I know is something nobody does.

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Nobody? Fuel is usually taxed in part to pay for the externalities of burning it (although in some parts of the world taxation is way too low). But aviation fuel is traditionally not.

In the United States (the extent of my experience on the matter), the fuel taxes are normally understood to pay for roads, which is really the opposite of addressing the externalities (since building more lane-miles fuels more demand.)

To make matters worse, they don't really cover even that cost, in most (US American) locales.

Most Western European countries have had a carbon tax of some sort since the late 90s–early 2000s, although implementations vary quite a bit.

Aviation fuel is typically not taxed since the alternative would involve planes loading up in cheaper countries and carrying it around. The end result would defeat the purpose of emissions reductions.

There are lots of active emissions schemes for fuel (and even for aviation) around the world.

So much so that there's even a law in the USA designed to prohibit participation in the EU scheme ("European Union Emissions Trading Scheme Prohibition Act of 2011")

Pigouvian taxes are a thing, and arguably one of the best types of taxes because they aim to correct for negative externalities instead of introducing new market distortions.

Yes, but it's something we should be doing, and the point is that airlines (or rather flyers) would be paying a lot.

The guardian has become the left wing equivalent of the daily mail. Which is a shame.

It always has been, not a recent change. They are dailymail masquerading as being more intellectual by using academic terms :)

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