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Comment by johnflan | Hacker News Reader

In Ireland road tax (paid annually) are based on engine capacity for (pre 2008 cars) and CO2 emissions for everything after that. (Engine size is a ok proxy for vehicle size)

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/41c9cc-motor-tax-rates/#mo...

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That's unfair. If one person drives 1000 km annually in a big SUV and another person drives 100000 km annually in a small and efficient hybrid sedan, then obviously the latter emits more CO2. And if hypothetically they walked the same distance they would likely emit even more CO2 (assuming they eat mostly western-style heavily processed food), but would obviously pay no tax at all. I believe a better system is to include the CO2 tax in the fuel/food price.

I don't see why that's unfair. Unfair to whom?

The person that drive 1000km on a big SUV emits more than if he had bought a small an efficient car to drive the same amount. So that should be incentived.

> I believe a better system is to include the CO2 tax in the fuel/food price

I agree with that.

Why do you think it's unfair to discourage what amounts to ≥3 hours of driving daily? At that point you should probably switch to trains or move.

Well, not everybody drives alone. Moving one person in a car emits comparable amount of CO2 as a person going by foot and moving only two people by car emits less CO2 than moving those two people on foot. We should discourage driving alone, or driving extremely short distances, but not discourage driving cars in general. Cars are surprisingly more energy efficient than walking/cycling if utilized fully. Also a big car fitting 8 people is more energy efficient per person than a small car that fits 4 people.

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