A 1000% tax on private jet flights would be nice too tho π€¨
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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This is exactly what I thought, too.
without looking it up I guess there are more commercial flights than flights with private jets. would you also tax flights of private planes that are not jets?
Emissions per passenger per kilometre.
Without looking it up, how many people does 1 commercial flight carry, and how many people does one private flight carry? How much fuel, therefore, is burned per person on each private flight? A private flight that could've been done on a commercial flight?
We'll sit here until you work it out. Don't worry, we have cheese and a flask of tea
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A carbon tax does a better job at incentivizing low-carbon alternatives at all scales, from trains and more efficient airplanes down to e-bikes.
the carbon tax for one kg should be set at 110% the cost to remove one kg, 100% to completely remove it, and 10% to help remove past emissions, which statistically the emitter probably emitted pre-tax anyways
The problem is that for fossil fuels, there is no good way to "completely remove" them. Most of the "carbon neutral" ads are plain greenwashing. But taxing it would be a good step nonetheless.
Put these taxes into research?
From what we know about physics and chemistry so far, it looks like there is no magical way to reverse this, that wouldn't require a huge amount of energy, resources and effort. Also, it's a bit to late to put money into research now. We know what to to do and how to "fix" things but we don't like the consequences so we (mostly) keep going as if nothing is wrong.
Carbon capturing is certainly possible. It isnβt worth it economically yet. Further research should make it cheaper. Meanwhile we will (hopefully) increase the CO2 tax. At some point it becomes economically worthwhile and companies will emerge to earn that money.
I didn't say it's not possible. I said it's not possible to undo what we've done and what we're still doing. It won't be fixed by removing the excessive CO2 from the atmosphere. Besides, I also think that it's not feasible at the required scale.
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You do not have linear costs of removal. Just letting nature be has no additional costs, but in the amount necessary extreme opportunity costs.
Technical systems might have a theoretical cost, but practically any energy put into removing CO2 from the atmosphere is much better put into not using fossil fuels to produce energy for a different purpose.
Meanwhile the cost estimates for the damages incurred are in regions of 200-500 β¬/tonne now. So unless we also properly tax imports and other countries also do carbon taxing, it will be the death to any industry.
An increasing carbon tax is an important instrument, but it can only be part of many measures, most importantly ramping up the renewable production by all means.
France is trying to set up something like that for electric vehicle.
They want to stop subsidizing electric car from China, but with European regulation they can't add a tariff according to the country.
So instead they the government will subsidize only electric vehicle that emitted less than X kg of CO2 for its production.
I think planes or to be precise their fuel aren't even taxed normally
We have the largest emission trading scheme in the world in the EU and it is actually working. The issue is that there are no taxes on international flights nor on kerosine. So flying is made artifically cheaper. That alone basicly would solve the problem.
The other big problem is that train tickets are not generally accepted across EU borders. That is a massive problem if one of your trains is delayed and you miss a connection due to that. You end up not being able to take an alternative train for free and do not get paid the normal fine from the train operator for long delays. There is some cooperation, so this is not the case for all international journeys, but still it is a problem.
That's true, but a carbon tax is politically more difficult to implement
Oh nice
Instead of trying to lower prices for alternatives (e.g. trains), they just try to jack up prices for existing forms of transport, so that the other transports now seem cheaper. How about taxing the shit out of airlines and using that to get trains down to the price of what airlines charge now?
This is just again getting the mid- and low-income layers to pay for shit.
Who do you think they will pass on those costs? Basically all Airlines make their money on normal tickets and not on the class 1 tickets. What you really want are instead of 0% tax on Airplaine fuel, ridiculous taxes. That actually increases the COSTS of airlines and those do get passed on more to the rich as they travel a lot more inefficiently. They also can't evade costs, but they can taxes.
You might be misunderstanding my comment: They can increase costs if they want, but they should take the costs away elsewhere. I have no problem with a train ticket being 10β¬ and a plane ticket being 120β¬ instead of the other way around.
But this will lead to a plane ticket being (as an example) 80β¬ and the train ticket continuing to be 120β¬. While they do make more money off of 1st class and stuff, they still need to make a chunk of the cost off of 2nd class. Especially on more local (e.g. inside the country or just one over), where there often is just one class in the plane (And maybe there is business).
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What are they doing for the train interconnections and low price all over the union ? Nothing.
Is this secretly taxing the poorest again, while the richest feel no change?
The poorest don't fly at all
Poorest flyers.
Sounds good! Now just make sure to include a clause that planes below a certain (carbon emission) threshold are excluded, so it actually promotes innovation and change, and doesn't just make it more expensive.
You mean like planes that have no wings and fly roughly 0mm above metal rails on the ground?
a few mm is fine, maglevs are cool
While a pan Atlantic railroad would be interesting, I think it would run into unique problems better solved with other technologies.
No, I meant planes or other flying vehicles that do not use fuel which is refined from oil.
I know technically there are a few little islands on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean that you could count as European but I am assuming the main focus of European flights would be flights within Europe.
Right, forgot that Iceland, Greenland, and Faroe Islands are technically not part of Europe.
Edit: yes, I know that the Faroes are not on the other side of the Atlant, but they are far enough away to be annoying to build tracks to.
Iceland and the Faroe Islands are normally grouped with Europe, and Greenland with North America.
Exactly! While Greenland and Iceland are geographically considered American (or half Amarican, half European for Iceland) , they are geopolitically considered European countries.
This means that a European rail, connecting all European countries, would need a rail to Greenland, which is on the other side of the Atlant.
Now, I'm not arguing against trains, they are a useful tool for the right job, but planes fill a different role (small load but high speed transport to hard-to-reach locations) that trains cannot fulfill in the same capacity. So instead of abolishing planes, we should try to force them to be more environmentally viable.
Thank you.