Carbon Tax

politicsdude

I've seen a couple of good articles such as this one showing how carbon tax is BS but have yet to see any decent arguments as to why it is actually a good thing, anybody able to help me out here? Or am I right to conclude the above article and others like it have hit the nail on the head. Is carbon Tax BS??

Cookie_Monster

because hitting people in the pocket is the quickest and most effective way of changing behaviour here in Ireland.

flutered

in ireland it is a revenue geathering exercise.

Scofflaw

Cookie Monster wrote:

because hitting people in the pocket is the quickest and most effective way of changing behaviour here in Ireland.

flutered wrote: »

in ireland it is a revenue geathering exercise.

The two are not mutually incompatible. The idea behind such a tax is to change behaviour without simply outlawing something, by providing an incentive for the consumer to reduce their use of something, while providing an incentive to the market to provide an alternative, by raising the price of use. It's irrelevant whether the tax makes a net profit for the exchequer - but hardly surprising at the moment.

A carbon tax on polluting fuel has both those aspects, while the tax on tobacco products is intended purely as a dissuasion, although you could argue that it has encouraged the market for "nicotine replacement therapies".

The thesis of the article, that carbon tax is bull because it's not going to reduce people's commuting time, is itself rather nonsensical. In fact, the possible behavioural changes over time may well include people preferring to live closer to their work, to use public transport, to work more often from home, to buy a more fuel-efficient car, but will also be focused on discretionary use of the car - the idea that people only use their cars for driving to work, or that that's even the major use of their car, is rubbish.

To take the example of the girl in the car in the clever little comic strip - she drives 10 miles to work, so her daily commute is 20 miles. That's about right, because the average Irish commute is 16km. Let's say she does that 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year - what's her yearly mileage? 5000 miles. OK, now what's the average mileage on an Irish car? About 12-15,000 miles (see here, for example). Clearly commuting is less than half the story - but, mysteriously, it's all that's really focused on in the article you cite.

cordially,
Scofflaw

recedite

Scofflaw wrote: »

In fact, the possible behavioural changes over time may well include people preferring to live closer to their work, to use public transport, to work more often from home, to buy a more fuel-efficient car,

I notice less of the bloated 4x4 SUVs collecting kids from school already.
Add to that the new 90% efficient central heating boilers, home insulation initiatives, wind and solar energy harvesting......

Scofflaw

recedite wrote: »

I notice less of the bloated 4x4 SUVs collecting kids from school already.
Add to that the new 90% efficient central heating boilers, home insulation initiatives, wind and solar energy harvesting......

Yes - sorry, forgot to add those, since the carbon tax isn't just on transport fuel.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Welease

I'm not a fan of the Greens.. i like "Green" policies, just not the Irish implementation of them...

That said.. simply put, there is very little will amongst people to do the right thing.. The environment issues are someone else's problem to solve, so people need to be forced into doing the "right thing"

The most effective way of implementing change at present is to make it prohibitively expensive to continue your current behaviour, the Carbon tax is a mild way of enforcing this behaviour. Raising the prices of carbon fuels will force people to consider alternatives.

The primary problem at the moment is, the alternative fuels are expensive and long term commitments, shortening commutes is not viable for those in neg. equity, and trying to force radical change in the middle of a recession is not the best time (although the Greens can't be blamed for that), but the SEI are there for those who can afford to make the changes..

But.. doing nothing is not really an option with carbon credits/fines..

Edit .. and in fairness .. if you think it;s expensive now.. wait 30 years... we might actually get ahead of the game if people start moving to non fossel fuels, or reduce their reliance on fuels via proper insulation etc.

politicsdude

Scofflaw wrote: »

To take the example of the girl in the car in the clever little comic strip - she drives 10 miles to work, so her daily commute is 20 miles. That's about right, because the average Irish commute is 16km. Let's say she does that 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year - what's her yearly mileage? 5000 miles. OK, now what's the average mileage on an Irish car? About 12-15,000 miles (see here, for example). Clearly commuting is less than half the story - but, mysteriously, it's all that's really focused on in the article you cite.

cordially,
Scofflaw

thats a good point but wouldn't much heavier road tax on SUVs etc be better than a blanket carbon tax? People choose to drive SUVs etc they don't have a choice about commuting. I found an article on how stuff works which shows the reasononing behind carbontax and some of it makes sense alright but I'm still not convinced that there isn't a better way of getting people to reduce emissions.

Scofflaw

politicsdude wrote: »

thats a good point but wouldn't much heavier road tax on SUVs etc be better than a blanket carbon tax? People choose to drive SUVs etc they don't have a choice about commuting. I found an article on how stuff works which shows the reasononing behind carbontax and some of it makes sense alright but I'm still not convinced that there isn't a better way of getting people to reduce emissions.

Not really - the problem with an SUV from an emissions point of view is only that emits more per mile than a smaller car. That's why putting the tax on fuel makes more sense, since if the SUV actually emitted less than a smaller car, under your scheme it would still pay more.

Some SUVs actually do have better fuel efficiency than some smaller cars, and to penalise them would miss the point of the tax - contrary to much of the raving that goes on about Green policy, this isn't about attacking SUVs and D4 tractors.

The alternative to such a tax is either a host of minutely detailed regulations, which would then need constant updating and feedback, or education campaigns - and education campaigns are mostly just a way of pretending you're doing something about a problem without upsetting anyone or making them change their behaviour.

Consider road deaths - something which relied on very extensive and very graphical education campaigns. Now have a look at the effect of introducing penalty points (note that driving miles per vehicle was increasing quite rapidly at the time of introduction):



Education campaigns are fun, they're enjoyable to spend money on, and they do have some effect, but if you want to really change negative behaviour patterns, some kind of penalty is what really works. After all, we don't rely on "Murder - just don't do it" ads, do we?

cordially,
Scofflaw

recedite

politicsdude wrote: »

wouldn't much heavier road tax on SUVs etc be better than a blanket carbon tax? People choose to drive SUVs etc

Say a farmer has an old Land Rover that he uses once a week to transport feed to some sheep he has up some hill a few miles away.
He should not be forced to get rid of the vehicle because of prohibitive road tax. He is not getting much use from the road network, nor is he causing much emisssions.
I would even say abolish all road tax, and just have the fuel tax.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Scofflaw

recedite wrote: »

Say a farmer has an old Land Rover that he uses once a week to transport feed to some sheep he has up some hill a few miles away.
He should not be forced to get rid of the vehicle because of prohibitive road tax. He is not getting much use from the road network, nor is he causing much emisssions.
I would even say abolish all road tax, and just have the fuel tax.

I agree, but I somehow doubt any taxes are going to be abolished any time in the near future. That is, as I've said before, a large part of the Green's implementation problem - they're seeking tax changes to change behaviour at a time when the government is also seeking tax changes to staunch an enormous gaping hole in the public finances.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Exactly - and in a sense, it illustrates the advantage of blanket taxes shaping a "market" rather than rigid and detailed regulation. If we mandated tax on the basis of make and model, and even year, we'd be offering no incentive to maintain the vehicle, drive conservatively, check tyre pressure, occasionally walk - whereas, as it is, people are not limited in the choice of method they take to reduce their fuel consumption, and can be as innovative in that regard as they please.

cordially,
Scofflaw