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by Tepix 2458 days ago
I had the same reaction when the German government revealed their insufficient measures as part of the "Klimapaket" (climate pact) last Friday. Scientists are recommending a tax of 180€ per ton of CO2 to achieve the necessary reduction in emissions. The German coalition government decides to introduce a 10€ CO2 tax. How dare they?
3 comments

How dare the Germans shut down multiple perfectly fine nuclear plants, so they have to burn brown coal instead?
How do you prevent populists from gaining power and reducing it to 0€?
By turning the EU into a dictatorship like the Soviet Union.

Personally, I don't care about carbon taxes (I drive a Tesla, too). The poor people on the other hand, will have to suffer even more apparently. They are the main beneficiaries of cheap energy/pollution, since they buy a lot of stuff that's only cheap because it comes from countries like China and India and taxes on fossil fuels and meat will hit them hardest.

You campaign incessantly to increase public awareness of the climate crisis, so that a populist politician will have as much to gain from acting to curtail emissions than from reducing taxes.

Also, instead of taxation - which is more more easily fungible - you aim for the phasing-out/banning of industrial processes which are overly polluting. With that, there's less of an immediate gain from careless de-regulation.

This doesn't apply to regular citizens, right?
I can’t tell if this is /s or not but carbon taxes fall on the end user to the extent of elasticity of demand and relative cost of alternatives.