Carbon Tax: The Best Way to Slow Climate Change?

Climate change is happening faster than expected. Is a carbon tax the answer?

The 2018 UN report shows that climate change is happening a lot faster than scientists originally predicted. As a result, there's a renewed interest in carbon taxes as a way to slow the effects of climate change. The problem is, it's not always a popular solution as opponents argue it would unfairly hurt the poor- as we've seen play out in France lately with the Yellow Vest protests.

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**What is a carbon tax?

Simply put, it's a tax on greenhouse gas emissions. When we use energy from fossil fuels-- like coal, oil and natural gas, we release carbon dioxide and methane into the air. These gases are "greenhouse gases" that trap heat in the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. They are also known as carbon emissions because they contain the element carbon. With a carbon tax, people and business would have to pay a fee for their carbon emissions.

**How would a carbon tax fight climate change?

The idea with a carbon tax is to make energy from fossil fuels super expensive, so people won't use it as much. Examples of this would be really high taxes on gasoline, jet fuel, your monthly electricity bill. If fossil fuel use become expensive, businesses would be more likely to invest in cleaner energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, etc.

**What are the pros of carbon taxes?

It's one if the easiest ways to decrease carbon in the atmosphere. In some places where a carbon tax has been implemented-- like Sweden and British Columbia, it's led to a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions.

**What are the arguments against carbon taxes?

One of the main arguments against carbon tax is that it will unfairly hurt the poor. It's a tax on things that are pretty essential for daily life, like heat for your home, or transportation. So, if you tax these things, it could really be bad for those that are already struggling with their bills.

**How is a carbon tax different from cap and trade?

Like the carbon tax, cap-and-trade policies aim to reduce greenhouse gas pollution by making it more expensive. But instead of a tax, cap-and-trade rules put a limit on how much carbon big industries like oil refineries, power plants and factories can release into the air. The government makes businesses buy permits, called allowances, for each ton of carbon they emit. And, there's a financial incentive to be clean: if a business has any allowances leftover, it can sell them to another business that may be going over its limit, and make some extra money.

SOURCES

The New York Times: Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040, October 2018

How Stuff Works: How Carbon Tax Works, August, 2007

The World Bank: When It Comes to Emissions, Sweden Has Its Cake and Eats It Too, May 2016

The New York Times: Does a Carbon Tax Work? Ask British Columbia, March 2016

Government of British Columbia: Climate Action Tax Credit

David Suzuki Foundation: Carbon tax or cap-and-trade?, October 2017

The Seattle Times: Washington state voters reject carbon-fee initiative, November 2018

The Sacramento Bee: California's cap-and-trade program is costly, controversial. But how does it work?, July 2017

The Washington Post: The carbon tax fallacy, June 2018

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[AboveTheNoise]

We all know we have to reduce carbon emissions if we want to slow global warming -- and fast. But what's the best way to make that happen? Is a carbon tax the way to go -- or would higher prices at the pump make that option politically impossible? Let us know how you would approach the problem in the comments below!

[jeimarneiza]

For a second there, I thought you were going to talk about Corona until I saw the date

[misadventure]

While it may be effective it’d never be able to go through with how money hungry our politicians are and how willing large corporations are willing to pay these politicians to block these bills.

[adrienarnalsteen]

taxing those product begin by making sure those large corporation pay their taxes. That is one of the reason for the yellow jacket movement in France. Also, many of the carbon emissions are not coming from the consumers. We need to change the world, making a product traveling 20 countries before arriving to the consumer is absurd. making product ourselves is not cheap but it create many job people are craving for. I am no expert but something seems very wrong about the way we are approaching the subject

[laelpeters]

Petroleum ingredients are used to manufacture most of our household ingredients and only about 30% of Petroleum is used for fuel.
Petroleum is used as part of the manufacturing for both wind turbines and solar panels.

[MarinelliBrosPodcast]

When he said emissions have fallen and there's been economic growth in California, 4:23. Emissions have fallen slightly and the economy has tanked, never mind how the cost of electricity has skyrocketed.

[elijahdage]

I remember a while ago hot mess uploaded a video of this sort of thing working in Texas of all places, they chose to use clean energy because it was available and it was cheaper. I say we need to encourage clean energy more than we discourage this. If we can get to a point where cheap, renewable energy is available to everybody, the pieces will slowly fall into place on their own. We need to focus on accessibility before subsidiary.

[BudzzableRides]

Ya right and my unicorn has no place to park at the imaginary bank while I’m depositing my imaginary rebate cheque!

[ericjohnson]

No to carbon tax. Climate change is normal. The sun and oceans are the main reasons for climate change go figure.

[yannisbarberis]

If you are older in age does not mean that you do not care about the environment. It depends on the education of any individual, in what kind of family you grew up with, and which are your values!

[cainthebraindrain]

Ok so, maybe I’m an an uncultured swine and i count on you for letting me know if so, but isn’t the government supposed to only collect the amount of money needed to sustain services? Because if that is the case, the amount of money that the citizens have to give should be the same with or without the carbon tax; meaning that with the introduction of a new carbon tax, the government would end up collecting more money than needed and should therefore be able to lower taxes somewhere else, hence providing an incentive to lower carbon emission through the new tax without raising the overall tax pressure on citizens... right?

[Jamal-Ahmed]

A carbon tax usually affects the poor rather than the rich.

[dmtlover]

I'm mostly in favour of a carbon tax but I don't think that's enough before we even pass a carbon tax we need to get businesses to actually pay their taxes by lowering them so it isn't a burden on businesses to pay them to pay it and taking out loopholes and tax deductables. Afterwards when the carbon tax is introduced we also have to take out subsidies in the gas, oil, and coal industry and favour businesses that move to green energy with tax cuts. Anyone harmed from this will get the extra revenue from the tax and surplus from taking away the subsidies from the oil, coal and gas industry,

[laelpeters]

Carbon Tax is just a Tax, Nothing more and Needs to Go!

[orsettomorbido]

The cap and trade is less intriguing to me than the carbon tax.
All the businesses can just buy a lot of those allowances and just pollute as much as they want.
Also, i don't see how this is going to make people want to reseatch on other sources of energy. There can just be a LOT more of new old style energy production facilities and the problem wouldn't be solved.

(Of course, this is the first thing that came to my mind after watching the video, i didn't do any research. I would do it in the future)

[vume]

Alcohol consumption is not showing any sign of decline despite heavy taxation. Government greed is behind a carbon tax, the air is supposed to be a free good.

[abramthiessen]

If you study the economics of externalities, you can see why a carbon tax or an equivalent cap-and-trade policy are the most efficient way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the increases in the cost of greenhouse gas emissions can be offset by decreases in other taxes like was done in BC and this can be tailored so that it doesn't disproportionally hurt poor people or small businesses.
Direct bans have their own problems. For a start, we don't have the technology to run a stable grid on more than a fraction (maybe up to 20%) wind and solar due to stability and storage concerns. Though we could replace a lot of the base load with nuclear, such things take a lot of time and may not have public support.

[tarushsrivastava]

Why are your cousins dressed as muslims for Halloween?

[matthewboyd]

Considering solar costs less than normal electricity already, making carbon based electricity much more expensive would push a lot more people to switch.

[lolmker]

shouldent we think about the affects made by cattle when we are trying to slow down the climate change