Carbon Tax explained by Elon Musk

One solution to create the right incentive structure for moving to the sustainable energy era and fight climate change would be to remove the hidden carbon subsidy by taxing the negative externality of CO2 emissions.

Elon Musk presented this idea in 2015 at the
I shortened his talk and edited out his stuttering for a better listening experience. I don't own the rights to this video, but I hope that this way I can spread the idea of a carbon tax. Hope you enjoy this video!

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[russellgillick]

Today I read that the Australian tax department suggests taxing fresh fruit and vegetables but not Carbon emissions. We are doomed for sure.

[playback]

Elon can come take the Carbon tax from my dead cold fuckin hands

[kingpin]

Elon Musk couldn't explain his way out of a paper bag.

[billrea]

A tax is a tax is a tax ! Don't Y'all think we, the people are almost taxed to death ? 42% when you earn it . 13% when you spend it . 67% on alcohol. 70% 0n tobacco . then figure out the multi-level taxation on gasoline, then add carbon tax ! This is in Canada .

[cbcsucks]

His cars pay no road tax in North America.
That's taken at the pump. A pretty nice externality if you ask me.

[rushiljain]

The intent behind his ideas is good, but implementing such a tax on a carbon intensive economy (pretty much of the world) will only backfire. To keep it short, it will existentially be the middle class and the low income group that will pay the most for this, not the corporations that are responsible for their major contributions to Co2 emissions. Take an example, Canada is pretty serious when it comes to acting on climate change, atleast thats what the liberals promise. Over the years there have been various carbon action plans but all of them section out big Canadian oil and gas companies. Although there was something like ca$50 per tonne in Canada, Suncor paid only about roughly $3 per tonne. They paid for about 12% of their total co2 emissions, because Canada has to protect its biggest industry from competition from foreign corporations that have no environmental taxes levied on them. If there is an argument about economy vs environment, economy will always win. We must learn to balance these two and walk.

[qpmkro]

how do you keep let's say producers of energy to not externalise that tax to the consumer by just increasing prices ?

[jonathannellis]

It's incredible to me that this is such a controversial idea. How can someone be opposed to internalizing externalities? It's akin to feeling entitled to dump nuclear waste in your neighbor's back yard without permission and without compensating them for their loss. Do some people really believe this is ethical? Taxing externalities should be the least controversial type of tax a government could possibly impose.

[YoureDoingItPeter]

The issue is, 25% of you do your own taxes, know what's going on. The other 75% have no clue

[mikeg.]

Let's tax everyone that uses fossil fuels including the fuel used for the space program. One launch of one rocket could subsidies a city like Houston for one month. 👍👍👍

[richdobbs]

My speculation is that only way to get an international consensus on a carbon tax is to have technology sufficient to allow production of energy at a cost less than fossil fuels. But at that point, you wouldn't need a tax anymore, because the industry would be dying. There might be a bit of movement by apply tariffs on China equivalent to un-carbon taxed production. But my guess is that in the short term that would drive China into autarky with a group of rebels against the carbon tax like Russia. It seems like the best chance is for China to be able to commercialize molten salt reactors or flow batteries, followed by fusion in 20 years or so.

[zboom]

The cost of a product is not being fully captured (items like disposal, environmental, social impacts aren't taken into account) and therefore the product is not actually properly priced. The fundamentals of today society's consumerism's model will need to be reassessed.

[ericfraser]

Whats the carbon foot print to produce a electric car, specifically its large battery made of rare minerals? If the grid is 60% carbon fuels and it and say 20% of that power is lost in the transmission and charging are electric vehicles gong to be charged a carbon tax? who will be hurt the most by the tax? Rich people will just go out and buy a new vehicle...

[FaBB_FS]

He wants a carbon tax because it will benefit his business.
Solution?


End all taxes, end all subsidies. May the better man win.

[Efrgcc]

Is that an edit in the video around the 1:26 mark?

[stevebaron]

New Crypto gem is fresh off the press. This is a really new project called CarbonTax Token.

[totaldla]

Musk makes a classic error: he ignores the compounding errors inevitable in 50yr predictions and he forgets that technology changes will make today's problems irrelevant. Musk was probably high or this is a deep fake.

[johnzuck]

Geez, would you please stop this nonsense…your trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

[Kanoee]

Wow and I thought Elon was smarter than that.

[charlesrobb]

A global carbon tax would end globalization. The third world would only have cost advantage on small items such as clothing. The reason we do not have a global carbon is because it would lower the status of those who negociate these deals. Engineering type skills would regain their status, As Ghengis Khan said: It is not enough that I win, , everyone else must lose