EU draft exempts private jets, cargo from jet fuel tax
argusmedia.com
argusmedia.com
Proposed bills usually go nowhere - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
On HN, there's no harm in waiting - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
The three organizations then meet in trilogue and hammer out compromises ('trilogue') with the commission facilitating but ultimately having little say on the outcome, except to block where something violates the EU treaties.
Ultimately both Parliament and council (at minister level) have to vote and agree before it becomes law.
So indeed lots still to be done and this is likely an attempt to already offer a compromise and will be reasoned (e.g. exempting these might be a small sacrifice if it gets a compromise that covers 99.9% of flights) - but given how visible this is it seems unlikely to stay in as Parliament will rally against it. You can also expect some egalitarian and green countries (Sweden, Finland, if the greens fet into government in the coming election even Germany) to already kill this in the council position.
They are proposed by the elected governments of the member states, and approved by a majority vote from the directly-elected European parliament.
It is very misleading to suggest that the Commission is completely unelected, like the British House of Lords is for example (in the "typical democratic UK"). It's not comparable.
> some other group with the power to stop it
You mean like the directly-elected European parliament, that needs to vote on it?
In reality the head of the Commission has a lot of power over who the commissioners are and have developed a habit of placing many criteria upon national governments in whom they may appoint. The most obvious example of this is the way Jean-Claude Juncker illegally and secretly rejected candidates many times, against the treaties. This only became public because he bragged about it when telling countries that they would not be allowed to nominate conservative Euroskeptics to Commission jobs. He said:
“Nobody knows this, but last time I rejected the candidacies of six of the Commissioners presented to me by national governments”.
Note: this is totally illegal by treaty. As normal, nobody cares. The EU violates its own treaties regularly, this is just one more way.
This system has now become institutionalized. For example vDL has required that half the commissioners be women and have rejected individual countries proposals, in order to get that. There have been quotas for women in the past too, just less than 50%. In theory this is not possible, in practice it is.
As for the European Parliament, it's useless. It doesn't make laws, so elections to it devolve into pantomimes with candidates all explaining that their policy is either to strongly agree with whatever the Commission wants to do, or to just oppose everything. The level of democratic respect it garners was indicated by how it was totally bypassed last time - in theory, the head of the Commission is voted on by the EU Parliament. So what happens: they were given only one candidate on the list to vote for, vDL.
A puppet pseudo-Parliament in which parties cannot have any policies, is not a real check on anything. It is a form of makeup covering the uglyness within, nothing more.
> A further exemption is given for "pleasure" flights whereby an aircraft is used for "personal or recreational" purposes not associated with a business or professional use.
Surely they can afford it more than everyone else flying?
What about ICE, do companies also not have to pay the Ökosteuer (green tax) on gas in Germany?
The thing is that fuel commercial aviation is exempt from tax due to historic regulations. The EU is proposing to change that by taxing jet fuel for those users. So it makes total sense that they exclude those that already pay tax on their fuel from this new tax.
How do the numbers compare?
The proposal is for a minimum tax on jet fuel for commercial flights to still start at zero and then increase the minimum tax every year. So I'm expecting it to be below VAT + excise.
Were the worst.
For instance, most hydrogen production currently comes from heating up methane and steam for a CH4 + 2x H20 -> 4x H2 + CO2 reaction. So current hydrogen is just gas with extra steps.
https://space.stackexchange.com/questions/35155/what-rocket-...
Still doable with renewables though. Assume 11639 MWh of fuel energy and 60% efficiency converting electricity to fuel. About 19,400 MWh total. That's 8 days of output from a 300 MW wind farm operating at 1/3 capacity factor.
It is still a evil corrupt practice to except the rich like this though. The same laws need to apply to everyone, which means my time on an airplane counts for as much as anyone else even though I can only afford to fly at all because I buy one seat on a commercial plane once in a while. Either everyone can't fly, everyone can, or at least the same rules apply.
Is the fuel taxes such a big part of the cost of flying a private jet?
Is it just that those people hate paying taxes on principle (and manage to lobby for it)?
Sure, at the end of the day their paycheck is money that came from their sponsors, but I'm pretty sure they mostly pay for the flights themselves. Many drivers live in Monaco, so they've even shared a chartered private jet going to some races and back.
Or I've even seen a driver take his wife and kids to vacation from Switzerland to Finland, on a private plane, with no sponsors being tagged in the Instagram story (but well, let me guess, you're going to tell me I'm being advertised to in other ways).
Though sports figures are more likely to take private planes in general. [When] They have the high income to support it, they also have a need to get between many different cities fairly quick, and not all those cities have good commercial connections.
Thus racers are rich enough to support private planes - via their sponsors. Most people don't have that kind of income.
Fuel price is probably a rounding error in comparison (they get a few miles per gallon). Edit - some quick Googling suggests that jet fuel costs $1.96/gallon in the US at the end of last week.
Jets aren't cars, you can't just change the oil every 3 months and have it run for years.
So, not a rounding error, but it's still only 20% of the cost. The fuel estimate I had in my comment was for a smaller jet though (7 or 8 passenger).
Private and recreational flying is explicitly exempted from the tax too. So I don't think it affects them.
That was my point. Most of the comments hammer down on "oh, the corrupt elite wants to cheaply fly to Davos", ignoring that flying - while a very expensive hobby - is an aspirational and achievable endeavor for many people including an attached industry and jobs.
The outrage is misdirected. We are talking about negligible increase in cost here for general aviation.
Or am I missing something?
So there's a gray area that can be addressed in the future. Same goes for "should business build consumer electronics in Asia and fly it in" or "build it locally". But that wont change overnight either.
Nonetheless the regulation is a start, and as with any regulation I don't expect it to be perfect on day one or in cynical, bad faith.
[1]: https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report_on_General_Aviation_Tren...
Just keep the magnitude in context, I think it is still an issue but our focus needs to be appropriately allocated.
Should we also care that rich people take up more room in the airplane than the rest? Business class should be abolished?
I guess I struggle with the hypocrisy around that fact that if we really want to curb CO2, there is a bigger fish to fry. For example, millions of people travel for pleasure on airplanes. From one point to the otherside of the globe. No one gives a damn about that, but hey! Look, rich people on fancy airplanes.
Even just today, GitHub copilot Twitter thread was full of “Rich people (Microsoft apparently) get to ignore licenses but us poor plebs have to abide by them”
Christ. I feel like I’m witnessing a mob without reason, logic and rational.
Maybe I’m looking into this too much, but to me it’s unavoidable observation.
Especially when that wealth was achieved on the back of the labor, the consumption, and (increasingly) the attention spans of the mob.
Erm, that is exactly the point of the "mob".
The common people do have to pay the tax, while flying crowded and therefore somewhat efficient - and the rich people with their own fuel wasting private jets should pay no tax at all AND have the privilege of luxery? Where is the reason for this?
"Christ. I feel like I’m witnessing a mob without reason, logic and rational. "
So maybe I am missing something, but the mob reaction seems to be very much based on logic.
So what I was missing is, that apparently commerzial Airliners do benefit from tax free fuel - but private jets do not. They have to pay taxes and a lot more than this tax is going to be initially.
So it seems the whole thing is a weird backward way to take back a bit the tax excemption on tax free airliner fuel?
I disagree, people are very very eager to start traveling again. I know that a lot of people around me are literally going to bolt off the second they are allowed to, preferably to the farthest away destination possible. Not that there's anything wrong with that in any case (especially considering how good the vaccines are)
Except for climate change ...
But I also really would like to travel again, far away, so what to do.
They’re a convenient distraction from the problem that actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
Except it won't.
It will cause some large industries to cease to exist though.
Hence, lots of lower-to-mid timeframe unemployment.
But the Democratic constituency is isolated now geographically and across occupations so that they don't get any votes from something like that, and the Republicans will be happy to allow the pain to happen while preventing any support and milking the resentment.
So yeah, that's probably what will happen because of our dysfunctional government, but by no means is that an economic certainty.
They probably are irrelevant, so why exempt them?
> actually curbing global warming will require huge changes in the lifestyle of the global middle class. Not just the super-rich.
I'm of the impression that "middle class lifestyle" itself isn't a big contributor to global warming but rather the manufacture and supply chains. If we electrify industry and transport, the bulk of the problem goes away (as I understand it) and the effects on the middle class are pretty transparent apart from choices to fund the transition to clean energy (e.g., to what extent does the middle class pay for the transition rather than the super rich). In other words, the average middle class lifestyle isn't significantly impacted by whether their goods are manufactured, refined, transported, etc with clean energy or dirty energy.
I get the distinct impression that the "middle class lifestyles will change dramatically" is frequently a euphemism for "we must go full-vegan" by people who are anti-meat. But meat production in the US accounts for only 8% of (co2-equivalent) emissions and those emissions are largely methane and nitrous oxide which dissipate quickly relative to co2 (12 years for methane vs 300-1000 years for co2).
Because not exempting them may make it harder to pass the bill?
Manufacture and supply chains (and services for that matter) that provide to the middle class. At least that's my interpretation of the parent's point.
The total installed renewable electricity capacity was greater than the totla installed fossil capacity for the first time in 2020. It was not replacing old fossil capacity, it was just added to the mix. And capacity != production, so i guess it's even worse than that.
Every amount of pollution counts, otherwise we could also claim that a single individual makes 0 difference.
If we consider such number small enough to be rounded to zero we are implicitly allowing homicide.
It portends a future where only the lower classes shoulder the burden of reductions in quality of life to manage climate change.
Which is, of course, what's going to happen.
And the same people probably have several yachts that burn even more fuel per hour.
Depends what you consider a "jet". There are a lot of aicraft in GA aviation that consume fuel at the same amount/km as a car, while not contributing to carbon emissions by sitting in traffic. Many of them also burn regular gasoline as fuel.
Presumably they already signed aviation treaties that do not allow for this.
> members of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), including the United Kingdom, are prevented from taxing international aviation fuel, or any proxies for fuel, under the Chicago Convention.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00...
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-allowances-for-air-pas...
Control what though?
It's a carbon tax on jet fuel. Makes sense to me that some folks with some connections could get themself exempt (even if unfair).
But I don't see anyone else paying any more or less under "control"... those folks are still going to travel.
Hilarious, that's corruption, plain and simple.
I think they (and those who take their money) would just rather not pay more if they don't have to.
Obviously though, you can't have both. The difference here is that rich countries are rich, and can afford to take on the extra financial burden via the very same finances that they obtained via cheap energy.
And because of this, 90% of the global electricity generation capacity added in 2020 was renewable. There wasn't a single coal burning power plant built in the US last year, despite political support for coal - it's just too uneconomic. This isn't coercion, taxes or anything - it's simple economics and it's happening everywhere - developed and developing countries.
Using old/outdated technology doesn't fuel growth in developing countries. Just because the industrial revolution in the west was powered by coal and steam engines, doesn't mean it makes any sense for a modern developing country to start building steam engines to power a manufacturing base.
[1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
The main issue is that renewables have huge upfront capital costs combined with 0 storage &transportation capabilities (cannot put your wind energy in a tank). Of course these are not issues for the West, but I don't know how you can go to an isolated Indian village and tell them that they need to spit 20k per household to install solar panels.
Combustible fuels are pay as you go. Want heat tonight? Use some wood just for tonight. Want to move your motorcycle? You need only a jug of gasoline.
I don't understand why you'd compare the capital cost of utility scale electricity generation against that for a wood burning domestic stove or a small motorcycle. Isolated Indian villages are not expected to fund utility scale electricity generation? I mean you could try to argue that candles are better than solar-powered flash-lights, I guess? But I don't see the relevance.
The fact is that for utility scale electricity generation, the combination of solar PV or onshore wind with idling peaker natural gas capacity blows all the competition out of the water in terms of cost. The only thermal generation currently viable in the modern world is combined-cycle gas and even then it's unlikely to maintain touching distance in a world where wind turbines continue to fall in price by 10% a year while PV panels are falling at an even faster rate.
You just have to look at what's actually happening globally - both developed and developing world. Like I said 90% of worldwide newly installed grid scale generation capacity added in 2020 was renewable. The simplest explanation for this is the one which agrees with all the analysis from various sources - it's happening because it's far cheaper.
Their first assumption is low interest rates for business loans and availability of investment capital. Again, we take these two for granted in the West, but they are not.
Second big assumption is the existence of distribution grid and storage. The fact is that we have almost 1 Billion people off grid and by making fossil fuels more expensive to them pretty much we decide that they need to stay impoverished for many generations to come.
Regarding your comment on renewable energy added in 2020, you failed to mention that the bulk of it comes from China, where the Party has made the strategic decision to do so regardless of cost.
I don't get the capital cost argument, both onshore wind and solar PV have between a third and a quarter the capital cost per KW capacity compared to a modern coal plant for example. As I said combined cycle gas is currently competitive but the price trajectories mean that solar and wind will not only be cheaper over their lifetimes but the capital cost will be less.
Nor do I get the grid argument which is an argument against all utility scale generation, not just solar or wind. Storage or more commonly idling gas backup is required to support fossil fuel generation also.
Repeating the claim that deriving more energy from solar and wind or hydro will impoverish people doesn't make it true. To support the claim you need to show that it's a more expensive way of providing electrical energy to people compared to alternative fossil fuel based generation. I've read no analysis which would support such a claim.
- I invite you as an investor to go to a developing country's bank and ask for a 10-million-dollar loan with <=10% interest rate to build anything. I don't know where they get these numbers (they conviniently say "Lazard estimates"). They are plain wrong.
"I don't get the capital cost argument, both onshore wind and solar PV have between a third and a quarter the capital cost per KW capacity compared to a modern coal plant for example. As I said combined cycle gas is currently competitive but the price trajectories mean that solar and wind will not only be cheaper over their lifetimes but the capital cost will be less. Nor do I get the grid argument which is an argument against all utility scale generation, not just solar or wind. Storage or more commonly idling gas backup is required to support fossil fuel generation also. "
- Had they had the access to cheap capital (or any capital) to build a grid they would have done so.
What you propose is for them to starve for some generations until they can build a grid. And even when they do, you will want to sell them more expensive equipment (electric cars, batteries for their grid etc).
Fossils can work without a grid, and they can already improve dramatically life and productivity to enable later public investments to infrastructure.
It is renewables that require huge initial capital investment to work without a grid. Fossils are pay as you go. You only need for example fuel oil in winter to warm your house with a couple of heaters. That is a cost of < $500 USD / year. To run two electric heaters (~10kw), you will need a big enough solar panel and battery to keep it running at night. So now you are in the tune of $20,000 USD.
* " Repeating the claim that deriving more energy from solar and wind or hydro will impoverish people doesn't make it true. To support the claim you need to show that it's a more expensive way of providing electrical energy to people compared to alternative fossil fuel based generation. I've read no analysis which would support such a claim." *
- Covered already.
A few weeks ago the same Sanchez said that we Spaniards should eat way less meat by the year 2050. Obviously that won't apply to him.
Its possible that Lockdown is a ploy to distract from the trillions of dollars of money printing that has gone on during the pandemic, to suppress the inflation generated, as well as to normalise location and biological data collection and arbitrary interference in personal liberty and private businesses.
It seems unlikely that the motivation is really the health of the populace, when deaths and ill health from air pollution and obesity, and from the interrupted medical treatments during Lockdown itself, are routinely ignored.
You can follow the same logical pattern for all the other major issues of our time. Are the massive migration inflows of violent military-age males into Europe from MENA really about humanitarian aid, or about injecting cheap labour into the continent and providing justification for giant intelligence agencies, tracking and banning of encryption?
The same for critical race theory - is the goal the betterment of humankind, or to set the working class against eachother and to distract from insane wealth capture of the 1%?
It boggles my mind what kind of conspiratorial, Truman-Show-like mentality people must have to find bad faith so common in life.
It is the party of those in America who were against lockdowns, masks, vaccines, or any kind of precautions who are also against any kind of regulations or limits on the causes of obesity or climate change or pollution. So your comment about "why do 'they' care about the virus but not pollution" is moot.
It'd be hard to come up with a more obvious scenario.
If anything I am quite sure that the few lockdowns we did have worsened the spread of COVID, or at least concentrated it over a shorter timeframe, since people were now packed into shopping centres at reduced hours, were forced to socialise in smaller 'speakeasy' venues, and had a greater interaction with grandparents given the closure of schools. Without lockdowns, the virus would have spread slowly and steadily, and been concentrated in younger groups who have more social interaction with eachother, like influenza each season.
Even under a 'best case' scenario for Lockdown, and using Sweden as an example, we have spent about 50 months in Lockdown in order to save 1 month of life - statiscally for someone of advanced age and with serious existing health problems:
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/lockdown-effectiveness...
Is there a health problem in the West? Yes, and its from obesity, which is heavily correlated to negative COVID outcomes:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8...
Sweden and Ukraine far below lockdown countries for deaths per capita: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...
Annual deaths in Sweden 2020 only 6% higher than 2018, and even then only after a weak 2019 flu/death season:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...
The COVID death spike in Sweden basically aligns with a once-a-decade flu variant:
https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-...
So is this conspiratorial? I am using all of the available data to create this attitude.
Just flipping through your source of "50 months of quarantine", and without (yet) reading the entire article, it is citing an extrapolated number from a hypothetical, which you cite as a statement of fact. Covid has been around for 18 months. You are being misleading, or English may not be your first language.
In any case, I'm not saying certain measures or lockdowns were overkill. I believe governments and experts, in a transparent fashion, should be discussing what went wrong and right at all levels, and how we can do better, quicker, safer the next time a pandemic hits.
I strongly reject the notion that this was a massive conspiracy to test the reach of government restrictions.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/paris-europe-coronavirus-pandemic...
People will be more thoughtful and less cynical when the rich take a serious attitude at ecology and inequality.
Because, when you think about it, climate change will also affect the poor way more than the rich - so some unscrupulous riches do have a vested interest in keeping people cynical, because it's not they who will suffer the consequences - they can retire in some nice mansion in the Arctic.
https://www.reuters.com/business/sustainable-business/draft-...
The European Commission has drafted plans to set an EU-wide minimum tax rate for polluting aviation fuels, as it seeks to meet more ambitious targets to fight climate change, a document seen by Reuters shows.
...
Introducing the proposals could be politically difficult. Changes to EU tax rates require unanimous approval from the 27 EU countries, meaning a single state could veto them.
...
From 2023, the minimum tax rate for aviation fuel would start at zero and increase gradually over a 10-year period, until the full rate is imposed. The draft proposal did not specify what the final rate would be.
...
The minimum EU tax rate would not apply to cargo-only flights or to "pleasure flights" and "business aviation". That could include recreational use of an aircraft or a company using a plane, not for public hire, to conduct its business. Member states could choose to tax those flights' fuel on a national basis.
The draft proposal would also introduce minimum tax rates on polluting fuels used for waterborne navigation, fishing and freight transport within the EU.
A TL;DW is that biofuels are unscalable and worse for the environment than standard fuels. Hydrogen is not yet viable, and would require entirely new aircraft designs. Electricity will likely never be viable for all but the smallest low-range aircraft. E-fuels (fuel made using carbon capture) is not yet viable, but may be a viable long term option.
The worlds use of fuel is many times greater in terms of calories than use of food.
That means if we want to use farmland to grow fuel, we're going to need a lot more farmland. We already farm most of the land that's viable for farming. So there isn't really much more available without destroying a lot of ecosystems and chopping down rainforest...
The same creator has a 15 minute video on that topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpEB6hCpIGM
But honestly, we deserve worse, it's our fault. We let those fucks FLY ON PRIVATE JETS to davos CLIMATE summit, and accept an increased tax on plastic bags (which incidentally was show to make people use more plastic). Anyway, yeah we deserve worse. It's not their fault. It's ours. We are the ones letting them tell us what to do while they fuck around on private jets.
This is one of the primary reasons I'm a pure libertarian. The more in depth research I did, the more I found it's nothing but a rigged game.
It truly is like the joke that's along the lines of:
"What's the difference between the government and the mob?"
"The mob didn't get 12,000 hours of schooling to convince you it's necessary."
I think libertarianism is quite self-contradictory, because if we assume completely fair starting conditions (they historically never were) and assume that people are renumerated fairly (which is subjective and disputable), the system as a whole tends to accumulate wealth in hands of smaller and smaller number of citizens, if nothing else then by just random chance, and since the property ownership is sacrosanct, there is no mechanism which could counteract the accumulation. Then these people might use the accumulated wealth to oppress others, as a kind of oligopoly. This contradiction was actually pointed out by Marx, who predicted that end of capitalism (a revolution) will come out as a result of this process.
But concentration to this degree practically requires government force to survive. I believe even those on your side of the political spectrum believe that corruption is what prevents the people from properly benefiting from government intervention.
I believe both you and I want us to stop (or never have started) all the wars of the past 20 years. This is a very popular viewpoint, yet moneyed interests prevent this.
I believe you and I have like ideals, but I don't believe deference to authority can ever bring them about. Authority always ends up corrupt.
> This contradiction was actually pointed out by Marx, who predicted that end of capitalism (a revolution) will come out as a result of this process.
And yet the Soviet Union is the system that fell.
Let's not rewrite history here. All of the American wars of the last few decades where very popular with (most) American voters when then they started.
There's no doubt the American military-industrial complex had some role in manufacturing consent, but don't kid yourself into thinking that the will of the American voters wasn't critical to the political strategy of the government.
Presumably, there would be government (or equivalent force) to enforce the private property rights? So I am not sure how that addresses the problem I outlined. And how do you make sure this force doesn't become corrupt?
> I don't believe deference to authority can ever bring them about. Authority always ends up corrupt.
Here's the thing. I believe there is a third option that is outside the "capitalist" spectrum which I am talking about (the liberal society of freely trading men who each have plot of land vs authoritarian society of landed gentry as a result of capital accumulation).
And that 3rd option is keeping wealth within certain limits by democratic control, through for example progressive taxes on either income or wealth, and redistribution of this to people who lost all (or most of) property, or just everybody in equal manner. Like a basic income that would be financed by the richest. See, this solution is different from both ends of the spectrum, and sidesteps the authoritarian problem (there is no decision to be made about where the money are going, there is a simple rule how they are redistributed, and this rule is agreed by consensus). The government that in libertarianism has to exist to enforce property rights could as well enforce this redistribution.
How 'pure' is pure libertarian? Do we allow private currencies to be issues by anyone, this used to be a massive problem?
Does someone in 'pure libertatian' society get a free defence attorney or school education? Do we have fire safety laws? We used to have entire cities burn down.
Do we regulate banks and financial markets at all? Do we have a regulator to stop ponzi schemes if the contract explains the mechanisms in fine print?
It feels like there would be a tidal wave of financial machinations where ordinary people would loose their shirts.
> We used to have entire cities burn down.
https://mises.org/library/development-municipal-fire-departm...
This same resource hits nearly every one of your points with well reasoned alternatives to government intervention.
Instead of expecting an answer to every what if that immediately comes to mind, please research the viewpoint from credible libertarian sources like the Mises Institute.
Another research avenue--anything Murray Rothbard.
Government is monopoly of violence.
For example, mono crop wheat is terrible, but the government uses its monopoly of force to coerce me into subsidies for foods I refuse to eat.
These subsidies are the reason it's healthiest to stick to the perimeter of the store. Without them, cheap cereal junk foods would at least not be so cheap.
This encouragement of low quality mono cropping directly supports big ag and companies like Monsanto. I'd much rather spend my money at a local farm.
These organizations are either government sanctioned or considered criminal.
The libertarian viewpoint on this is that all initiation of force is criminal.
> if you support a minimal government that enforces private property rights
I don't support that. I think individuals should take the protection of themselves and their property seriously. And no, I don't just mean having a gun, but instead seeking a place that honors private property and or paying for protection services as needed. Everything the government provides, a private entity can as well.
What count as initiation of force? If I walk into your house and take your things, am I initiating use of force? If I want to live somewhere where that is not the norm, how am I supposed to find that place? It seems very idealistic to me that such a place could exist without it being enforced somehow.
> instead seeking a place that honors private property and or paying for protection services as needed. Everything the government provides, a private entity can as well.
If that private entity makes that provision through the use of force, do they not then constitute a government of sorts? If they do not use force, then how do they manage to make that provision at all?
I can't wait untill we have two different "protection services" come into conflict because they are "protecting" different things and we have shootouts on the streets.
Much like the latest incident with Vigilante app, but imagine both entities had good for hire
https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/21/22447446/citizen-app-inte...
This us mental gymnastics.
Oh, customer's chose a network operator that sells their data. Nevermind that all 4 network operators sell your data! Or could have chosen to live without a phone and be like a hermit in the woods!
It's always in the interest of insurance companies to pay out as little as they can get away with.
The only other outlets carrying this story are of suspect origins, too:
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=eu+carbon+tax+private+jets&...
See: RT.
There is one more credible looking source though, which is this one:
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2231434-eu-draft-exempts-...
The key wording:
> The European Commission has proposed exempting private jets and cargo flights from the planned EU jet fuel tax.
It has proposed this. Which is to say that it can be amended with input from back channels from both Europarl _and_ the national governments. I would be surprised if this headline grabbing omission wasn't kiboshed totally.
As usual, Guido will take the opportunity to bash Europe without fairly portraying how it works. This is basic journalistic failure equivalent to slamming Westminster because of the publication of a green paper.
EDIT: Original link was to an awful source, the lovely moderators have changed it.
If the proposal regarding "pleasure" flights stands, then the EU is no better than UEFA or IOC.
Is that really the message that the EU wants to send i wonder.
It also reflects poorly on Slovenia that is currently holding the presidency, but i suspect they don't really care.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_the_Council_of...
EDIT:
Having read another source it doesn't seem clear that pleasure flights are exempt.
https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publicat...
I've noticed there's a recent trend of grossly mispresenting this stuff in the worst possible light. It seems if any EU whitepaper even just mentions encryption it somehow gets twisted into EU encryption ban being imminent.
I urge people to always read or at least glance at the actual documents when claims about new laws/proposals/etc. seem outrageous.
Imagine if the world was just a little more complicated than that, and rich government elites were also representing the interests for downplaying climate change and doubling down on fossil fuels.
It might mean regular people died in unprecedented heat waves and got their houses burned down by wildfires. All while billionaires convince them that all carbon pricing is awful and corrupt, careful that they don't know too much about the option of revenue-neutral dividends.
Anyway, couldn't the aristocrats (10%ers) writing this do a better job with trade-offs? Like exempt it, but force them to buy carbon credits at a set discounted price?
Pretty sure the 1% knows they can't get away with this without a compromise.
For example, an EU airport could charge max(min(10%, tax rate of country you came from last), tax rate of country you're flying to next).
Thats to prevent an aircraft just filling up where it's cheap and carrying that fuel around the world unnecessarily.
The EU should then lobby other countries to introduce fuel taxes, and if they refuse, set fees for aircraft coming from those countries into the EU which is approximately equal to the taxes due on the fuel for those flights.
Turkey will love this - as they are not an EU member and have just built the biggest airport in the World.
Tax the fuel, and give certain groups a subsidy when you think it is necessary. That way, accounting is fully transparent, and we don't end up in weird discussions about why some groups of people pay tax and others don't.
Air traffic causes 2.5% of all CO2 emissions globally. In rich countries about 3%.
(If it even exists now, I haven't seen the actual draft)
> The commission is worried that taxing fuel for cargo-only flights would adversely affect EU carriers.
Adversely affecting the aviation industry is kind of the whole point you gits.
Means they need another tool.
The exception for private jets seems hard to defend though, whether business or pleasure.
Now, the wall simply reads, “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL / BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”Now, for Private Jets? Yeah that's ridiculous.
So why would they pay jet fuel tax, too? This has nothing to do with global warming, it's all about tax avoidance, it fits the pattern.
There was a nice study from Cato institute (somewhat surprisingly), a comparison between different U.S. states, that showed that tax measures established by direct democracy (referendums) have less loopholes than the ones established by representative democracy.