[alerkay]

Thinking about your post, I think you have a point there.

I noticed that in his speech, Elon Musk doesn't talk at all about what form the carbon tax should take.

In reality, if a carbon tax went into action, 90% of its effect would hit fossil fuel companies and nobody else.

Am I wrong? How do you implement a carbon tax then?

[pzone]

Suppose we want a tax of $50 / ton of co2 emitted. Then we do some chemistry and figure that burning 5 barrels of oil emits a ton of co2 into the air. Then the government adds a tax of $10 per barrel. Every producer who buys from the gasoline refiner has to pay the tax.

Individual gas stations and consumers wouldn't have to think about it, since they aren't purchasing from refineries directly. But the prices they pay would increase indirectly.

[alerkay]

That seems pragmatic enough to me, and also quite effective. I live in France and, unless I'm wrong, the highest of the oil-related taxes here apply to the consumers, when you're getting gas at the gas station. Instead, your proposition - to apply a $10 tax on the barrel - would apply the same taxation on any fossil fuel usage, be it plastic fabrication, air transportation, electricity generation, etc... That makes a lot more sense environmentally-speaking.

[danieltillett]

No you are right. The basic problem is it is much easier to block something new than bring in something new. By trying to fight the owners of carbon you are giving them all the power, because they will find it much easier to block a carbon tax than you will find introducing it. More fundamentally there is no good reason why most of the cost should fall on the owners of carbon rather than the whole community.

The cost of buying out Exxon and co would not be too bad given we can't stop burning carbon today and any change will take 20 to 30 years. We can basically buy an option today on the carbon to be produced 20 years from now and this should be much cheaper.