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0 pointsamluto3y ago0 comments

If any of the sensible variants of a carbon tax or tariff were implemented, developing nations would have a strong incentive to reduce emissions: all of their exports would be taxed to penalize their emissions at the same rate as everyone else’s.

In my opinion, having well meaning politicians and activists target specific climate-improving projects for funding and climate-harming projects for penalties or cancellation is the wrong approach: it’s expensive, it often chooses the wrong winners and losers, and it’s ineffectual. Putting monetary incentives in place that apply to everyone as equally as practical lets the free market choose winners and losers, and the free market is pretty good at that.

(Also, the free market decouples the industries “responsible” for the problem from the often unrelated technologies that can help solve it. If a cement factory must pay $15/ton for its CO2 emissions, a startup selling carbon-free process heat that is only $5/ton more expensive than whatever a plant currently uses has a decent case to make a sale.)

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brutusborn3y ago· 3 in thread

I'm in the same camp with wanting a better carbon tax but I've become skeptical that it is politically possible. For example, what happens if a bloc of countries refuse to pay their share? You can try and punish them with sanctions, but energy is so critical to national security that they are likely to be ignored. Then the only solution becomes war?

ZeroGravitas3y ago

Carbon border tariffs will make all their exports more expensive.

Assuming they are cheating for financial gain, that should be enough to stop them.

JamesBarney3y ago

How do they ignore sanctions?

brutusborn3y ago

They continue to pollute and treat the sanctions as a cost of doing business. Ignore was probably the wrong word, but it is essentially how North Korea, Russia and Iran currently treat US sanctions.

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