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Comment by mrob | Hacker News Reader

Like all externalities, the solution isn't social shaming, it's taxation. We need to introduce a carbon tax, and tariffs on trade with countries that don't enforce an equivalent tax. I suggest this tax income be distributed equally among all citizens, so that it functions as compensation paid from those who emit more than their fair share to those who emit less. I see no problem with billionaires emitting enormous quantities of CO2 so long as they pay for it. Wealth needs to have some privileges for capitalism to function correctly, and capitalism (with the state doing its duty to regulate market failures) is the best economic system we have.

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Agreed on taxing externalities, but rather than being used for redistribution, it should be used to fund carbon cleanup.

I wonder if we could achieve the same net effect by allowing the carbon tax to be either negative or positive, paying people to produce net-negative CO2, so that it's possible to compete on who can do so most efficiently.

In theory, this sounds fine, in practice it hurts the poor the most again.

Musk and Bezos can build solar panels on their huge properties and offset their other CO2 production (the way we do with "coupons" now).

But what will little below-average bobby in some cold rural area do, if the only way to heat his small rural cottage is a wood-burning stove? Pay more tax to people like musk, who now generate negative CO2?

Look at electric heating for example, a resistive heater is ~15eur over here, while a heat pump is around 1k eur with installation. If you want to be even more efficient, you build better insulation and a ventilation system with a heat exchanger. But hey, if you're poor, living in an overly expesive rental apartment, you don't have that money, but you do have 15eur for a space heater and suddenly a higher tax bill.

It doesn’t hurt the poor very much because the poor aren’t consuming much. It’s the rich that are responsible for most emissions.

Use a wealth tax to pay for housing energy efficiency improvements.

I got our roof, windows, doors, water heater and AC done via an no-interest state program of this nature.

The poor are responsible for below average CO2 emissions, so they stand to benefit from redistributed carbon tax. Wood burning has its own problems, especially in urban areas, but its carbon emissions are net zero, and should be taxed as such. If the rich build enough solar panels to offset their emissions (which considering the figures presented in the article seems unlikely) then the tax is working as intended. Incentives against resistive heating increase demand for alternatives, which increases competition to supply those alternatives and drives down price.

A resistive heater just uses electricity, it doesn't emit CO2. So the user won't be taxed. The power company might be taxed, depending how that electricity was produced.

And that power companies co2 tax will be paid by whom?

The same people who pay their payroll tax. Should we abolish payroll taxes too because some customers are poor?

But you have to earn more to pay more payroll tax and you still take home more than before. At least in my country, people on minimum wage pay almost zero income tax.

Some people can barely afford heating already, and we're making it even more expensive for them, while people like musk/bezos can just avoid it, or even earn money on co2 coupons.

If you suggeted banning private jets, bot for the rich and the poor, then sure, that would affect bezos a lot more than bobby below-average over here, but not this.

Carbon tax here in Canada has turned into a lightning rod for the populist right, spreading misinformation about it and using it is as a lever to take power (they will soon) and govern on behalf of the fossil fuel sector. I think you'll find globally that the few carbon taxes in existence are going to go away, not more be enacted.

I wish I had more optimism here. For a brief window some years ago my anti-capitalist impulses were put in check and I thought maybe neo-Keynesian liberals could lead us out of this, as they promised, and that gov't policy combined with the natural market forces emerging from the renewable energy sector would gradually taper emissions off.

Unfortunately, nope.

The sad irony is that a carbon tax is the most modest, conservative-friendly, marketish-based policy. But the right just can't resist turning opposition to it into a trampoline into power. And the fossil fuel industry is going to go down alright, but it's planning on taking us all with it.

Same in Wa state. I nearly voted for a republican this week until his Bio said he was against cap n trade.

When our conservative provincial gov't here in Ontario took power back in 2018 they pulled us out the cap'n'trade agreement we had with California and Quebec. Stupid move, we had to pay a bunch of penalties and then it just turned around and we had a carbon tax put on us by the federal gov't, instead.

> I suggest this tax income be distributed equally among all citizens

Why not just cut out the middle man and let us all keep what little income we have vs yet another tax. Everyone gets taxed right? Or do you mean tax for thee none for me?

Because that wouldn't have the desired effect of incentivizing reduction in CO2 emissions. The alternative is privately owned air and class action lawsuits at unprecedented scale.

> Everyone gets taxed right?

Yes, but your personal tax of $0.03 would be deducted from your $17 redistribution of Jeff Bezos's tax, so don't worry about getting yours, you'll still come out ahead.

Taxes are for some purpose. And we all know that liberalism does not work in this case. It's the same as the coca Cola company produces millions of tonnes of waste, but they're not caring about this fact. Taxation also opens a lot of employment to support it and then support the dealing with the problem

A lot of people (over 40%, IIRC) already pay no federal income tax in the US.

If one’s intention is to benefit them, you can’t do it by just reducing their [zero] taxation.

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