[wallace_f]

Internet experts, politicians, bureaucrats and intellectuals can argue until the end of time about which CO2-emitting products and services deserve to, or should, exist.

Just the same way the expertise of the most-brilliant central planners in the USSR and elsewhere allocated resources.

It doesn't work. There's a better way which is also consistent with democracy and individual choice. But people don't like the sound of it.

[worldsayshi]

> There's a better way

You mean putting a price tag on emissions I assume?

[wallace_f]

Yes of course. Just tax carbon (and use the proceeds to give a flat rebate to everyone).

[zhoujianfu]

I’m not sure why you’re downvoted... this is 100% the best way to incentivize reduction in carbon emissions. And just keep upping the tax gradually as needed.

[dnautics]

Is it? Flat carbon trading without any credit schemes is as good and has some pretty good precedent going for it (nox and sox markets)

[wallace_f]

It's the next-best solution. The only reasonable argument in favor that I've seen is that it is easier and more authoritarian (maybe be careful believing this is a good thing?) to set a hard cap. But a carbon tax can always be adjusted.

It's inferior in econonic efficiency and comprehensive coverage to a carbon tax.

And if implemented incorrectly, it becomes corporate welfare, and this has already happened. It has potential to be just another corporatist-cronyist scheme at taxpayer's expense.

And to date government and bureaucracy have been pretty horrible about solving climate change.

Carbon tax is a simple, elegant, efficient, effective solution. Most people just dont like the sound of it though.

[graeme]

If you edited your original post to add carbon tax, it would probably read a lot clearer. (I upvoted it, I agree)

How would you solve the trade component though? Because carbon production would just shift elsewhere unless:

* there was an international treaty where states each agreed to raise carbon taxes and cut other taxes or do a dividend, or

* import tariffs were levied in proportion to the carbon used in imports from countries that didn't have a similar tax

The latter would demand a large bureaucracy and have a lot of distortions.

I realized recently that a carbon tax isn't like an income tax. An income tax only occurs on profits, whereas a carbon tax is an input tax. This makes the jurisdiction shifting problem more acute.

A carbon tax is still my preferred solution, but was wondering if you had any ideas on how to get around this.

[dnautics]

> The only reasonable argument

Except for the fact that markets are a great way to manage rivalrous goods, dynamically balance economic need against cost without the need for a centralized authority to have high-touch meddling (which presents a corruption danger), oh and most importantly, ad I said, they work, empirically, as with the United States SOX and NOX markets

[based2]

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport/aviation_en