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by sparkie 2757 days ago
Legislation is going to do absolutely nothing except maybe kick the can down the road a little further. (And at the cost of causing economic stagnation in developing nations).

What we really need is investment into clean energy solutions. Investment is not going to come by robbing a percentage of GDP as a "carbon tax."
2 comments
fhood 2757 days ago
> Legislation is going to do absolutely nothing except maybe kick the can down the road a little further.

Making it bloody expensive to produce ghgs seems like a pretty excellent way to spur investment to me.

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sparkie 2757 days ago
The costs are always passed on to the consumer in the end. It makes no difference to the big energy companies.

In fact, it creates the perverse incentive that the legislature are generating so much income from carbon taxes that they will not want it to stop. Imagine that they're taking 2% of GDP and someone comes along and promises low-carbon energy solutions. The government is then going to lose 2% of their budget. They won't want that.

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vkou 2757 days ago
> The costs are always passed on to the consumer in the end.

When the costs are passed on to the consumer, I can discriminate between GHG-intensive products, and non-polluting products, by price.

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fhood 2757 days ago
I can't be 100% sure that you are incorrect. But given how much the price of gas affects the market for fuel efficient cars, I cannot imagine that making polluting technologies more expensive would not cause manufacturers to pivot to greener methods.
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throwaway5752 2757 days ago
The government collecting taxes and investing them has probably created the majority of humanity's enduring achievements.
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sparkie 2757 days ago
You have a bizarre perspective on history if you believe this. It is only recently that governments have tried to monopolize infrastructure developments.

And they have the unfortunate outcome that they outsource the work to private entities which don't have to behave like regular companies (ie, compete in a free market).

Governments waste money. If left to the free market, costs would be reduced because those who can't compete on costs would find themselves out of work.

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