In a market system, a carbon tax is the best way to punish carbon emission. Buuuut it was politically unpopular :(
I think we have a decent industrial carbon tax, right? Which kinda has a similar-ish effect as the consumer carbon tax, though slightly less efficient.
“Politically unpopular” is doing a lot of work behind the scenes here. Who believes people just organically came to the opinion that they don’t want to receive a tax rebate when industry pollutes, and that they’d rather the pollution just go on instead of that?
Solution X wasn’t 100% effective, hence solution X was ineffective.
We’re talking about federal policy. Stuff that the federal government can do. Can it do more? Definitely. Is it actively doing stuff contrary to what would be considered as “climate protection”? Yes. But that does not make carbon taxes good or bad policy.
The logic behind taxing carbon is the following:
carbon emissions are a negative externality
taxing something tends to reduce that behavior
subsidizing something tends to encourage that behavior.
a tax that taxes consumption of goods, where the act of consumption and production of that specific good leads to carbon emissions, discourages consumption of that good. The collected tax was redistributed to folks.
The effect of the above was simple. If you lived a lifestyle that resulted in more carbon emissions, you suffered a loss. If your lifestyle involved less carbon emissions, you profited. Regardless, the tax encouraged you, and through your consumption habits, the entire economy to reduce carbon emissions.
Right now, the federal government has dropped the consumer carbon tax and instead increased the industrial carbon tax. The effect is literally the same. Industries pass on the tax to consumers. Except, you don’t get a rebate anymore lol.
In a market system, a carbon tax is the best way to punish carbon emission. Buuuut it was politically unpopular :(
I think we have a decent industrial carbon tax, right? Which kinda has a similar-ish effect as the consumer carbon tax, though slightly less efficient.
“Politically unpopular” is doing a lot of work behind the scenes here. Who believes people just organically came to the opinion that they don’t want to receive a tax rebate when industry pollutes, and that they’d rather the pollution just go on instead of that?
So pickup truck sales and air travel did not skyrocket after 2019?
Canadians all drive small cars and don’t do fly away vacations any more?
Carbon tax just ended up being pay to burn. Meanwhile, Ontario is increasing highway speeds 10% which increase fuel use 20%.
We’re talking about federal policy. Stuff that the federal government can do. Can it do more? Definitely. Is it actively doing stuff contrary to what would be considered as “climate protection”? Yes. But that does not make carbon taxes good or bad policy.
The logic behind taxing carbon is the following:
The effect of the above was simple. If you lived a lifestyle that resulted in more carbon emissions, you suffered a loss. If your lifestyle involved less carbon emissions, you profited. Regardless, the tax encouraged you, and through your consumption habits, the entire economy to reduce carbon emissions.
Right now, the federal government has dropped the consumer carbon tax and instead increased the industrial carbon tax. The effect is literally the same. Industries pass on the tax to consumers. Except, you don’t get a rebate anymore lol.