The inability of the US to pass a carbon tax will be one of humanities great tragedies. That they are the theoretical champions of the free market is just piling cruel irony on top of that.
Even China has just recently established a national CO2 trading scheme.
Who do you think absorbs the 50€ / ton and rising shock better, a German making 4000€ / month or an East European making 300€ / month?
We either go at this together, in a thought out way, or we don’t go at all. The EU distrusts nuclear energy; we’ve been advised against nuclear energy projects. The EU dislikes coal; we’ve been advised against coal. So what can we do? We can’t build nuclear, we can’t work with coal. What do our workers do? Do we just continue to be meat for the betterment of the west?
I can’t even imagine the difference between the American standard of living and someone in Africa barely hanging on by a thread.
I don’t have a point, I’m sick and tired of being late to the western party (industry? services? startups?) and then we can’t even catch up because the persons in the high castle know better… and now, after burning the world for tens of years, the west is still the saving grace swooping down and imposing global restrictions in order to further protect their lifestyles. Sickening…
Yes. And their lifestyle should absorb more of these taxes then just part of the money they produce at present time. We have dozens of nations each with their contribution scheme, it’s not so easy to measure opportunity and lifestyle. My Danish friend pays 60% of his salary in taxes and enjoys a great life, like most of his conationals. In other EU countries, taxes are more lax and personal wealth is maybe higher but the infrastructure holding it together less consuming…
> Sure but how does imposing CO2 tax "protect their lifestyles"? The tax is based on how much CO2 you produce so rich people who consume more also end up paying more.
EVERYONE needs a home. When the EU increases tarrifs on coal and steel without encouraging local production, they are in fact reducing the housing availability for low income people… such as in Eastern Europe. Economically forcing some of us to move westward so we can produce more money so we can afford certain lifestyle options thus building the great pyramid of western economies.
> Furthermore the tax aligns incentives to actually decrease CO2 production by finding greener alternatives.
We have insanely lucrative European Projects that could be used to encourage this. We don’t need taxes to innovate, we need oportunities… which are not as evenly spread out as one might expect.
> Last but not least pointing fingers at each other for past transgressions does very little to actually help the do or die situation that climate change is rapidly turning into.
Neither is imposing taxes on my great grandma that has the CO2 imprint less than my cat. And I wholeheartedly disagree that pointing fingers does not help. Are we supposed to just forget that countries have built their whole wealth on exploiting others and now SHOULD work harder and reduce their lifestyle in order to compensate for the hundreds of years of global resource extraction? A new clean pass? It’s exactly what I find horrendous about this approach.
At the current rate of brain drain, and innovation investment, my children will either find it very hard to build here, but realistically, as 3 / 4 people I’ve met in my life, they will have to move to the west and start a new life there.
I’m not sure why I come of as past oriented, I don’t think I’m that kind of person, but I’ve certainly passed a point in life where I can’t look through rose-tinted goggles anymore.
The poor in their own countries struggle, it will come to a point where they've had enough. We can already see it with electing more and more authoritarian leadership that doesn't care about "woke" stuff.
They will rely on the police for protection, but there's only so many pigs around.
So, to be clear, what are said western fuckers supposed to do? Go "oh well, guess we're too detached from reality, may as well give up" and 100 years from now humanity has been driven to near-extinction by climate change?
The money raised from the CO2 tax does not leave your country, but is gathered in a climate fund, that the EU member country generally uses to grant subsidies for energy efficiency and renewable transition. So, more tax should mean more grants for renewables, but that depends how your country sets up the conditions to grant the subsidies.
The biggest emmiters also generally get a certain amount of CO2 emission coupons for free. If they go over their allotment, then they need to buy coupons on market, which is where the money can leave your country.
That the EU dislikes nuclear is IMHO a poor decision. Generating electricity from nuclear fission is one of energy miracles. No fuel gets such energy density.
If you have make a carbon emission high product, you rather change the production country (to a less controlled country, where you even can trow your waste water into a river) then to research the next 20 years on new technology.
And the income from the tax goes to insurance company's and Rent rather then to green projects..it's just another tax without any meaning:
https://www.bafu.admin.ch/bafu/en/home/topics/climate/info-s...
AFAICT, 1/3 is used for renovations and renewables. 2/3 is redistributed to residents and companies. Residents get their share via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference.
>via health insurance companies, though that shouldn't make a difference.
The difference is huge, in the time between income and give it to the citizens you can make huge amounts of money with it.
"in proportion to the settled AHV payroll of their employees"
I'm not sure how you equate AHV with rent, as it seems to be a social security / retirement system, and furthermore I'm under the impression that it's only used for the payroll data, with the money going to employers.
As for making huge amounts of money while holding money (around 87CHF * 8M for <1 year?) - is it really that huge and aren't they already holding orders of magnitude more money?
I know that's not quite what you meant, but I think it's probably more feasible to have multiple specific things like that than an overall tax somehow?
Even for companies, forcing them to account for their carbon footprint, auditing it, etc. just seems like it'd be more 'busywork' and open to loopholes to me than 'just' taxing specific purchases or activities.
Canada implemented it at the federal level in 2018.
It is probably the closest implementation to the bill proposed to the congress this fall:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2307...
Until you look at per capita consumption.
However, the natural phenomena governing the planet's weather does not care about anything other than absolute CO2.
Fair or not, absolute CO2 is the number that matters for the planet.
We can come up with a mitigation or fairness mechanism, but in the end the planet works just like a virus or a script, it's a complex mechanism that you cannot negotiate or reason with.
From the perspective of humanity, particularly on this topic, the planet (and reality itself) runs on the human mind (a collection of them), and the human mind to some currently small degree, can be negotiated and reasoned with.