Comment on ‘Why the hell did we ever drop it?’: Labor should push for new carbon tax, ex-Treasury head says

Pilferjinx@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• pupbiru@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  the government charges carbon emitters for their emissions - this is done in multiple ways, but the gist is big polluters (power generation, industrial, etc) are charged at the source and things like petrol is charged at the pump

  as part of taxes, or whatever other means, the revenues from that tax is evenly distributed back to the population

  this makes the cost of carbon-heavy products more expensive, making carbon neutral products cheaper relative to them

  it also means that if you live a carbon neutral life, you’ll end up paying no tax, and just getting a nice payout to offset the slight extra you paid for eg green energy

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  • JasSmith@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Well, making necessities more expensive is difficult to sell no matter how it’s packaged. Like it or not, oil is used in everything from transporting food, to growing food, to medicine and supplements, to commuting for work, to home insulation and building, to iPhones and computers. Making those things more expensive, no matter the righteousness of the intention, hurts especially the working classes and the poor. Targeted subsidies to compensate them for their loss is impossible to fairly calibrate, and usually results in even greater political turmoil.

    Carbon taxes can work if the country is wealthy and can afford the productivity loss (and the citizens are willing to give up that economic progress and wealth). For a nation like the UK, with massive economic problems, a growing underclass, astronomically high housing costs, and spiraling costs for necessities like food, a carbon tax is nothing other than a direct attack on the poor and political suicide.

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    • pupbiru@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Well, making necessities more expensive is difficult to sell no matter how it’s packaged

      well that’s kinda the point: in the wash, it didn’t… you paid a bit more and got that money back at tax time… any carbon tax you pay gets evenly distributed across the population, so if your carbon footprint is less than 50% of the counties, you make money

      considering the carbon emitted by the top 10%, this is basically wealth redistribution and it helps tackle carbon

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    • blind3rdeye@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      This is why various necessaries were given offsets with the previous carbon tax. Problems like that can be worked around.

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  • Aussieiuszko@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Let’s call it a Carbon Tariff, they’re so hot right now.

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