China is the largest CO2 producer in the world and is growing. The US is second but our emissions are actually decreasing and likely to continue decreasing. Taxing Western companies may reduce the West's carbon footprint but hardly helps the overall picture while being essentially austerity.
Oh it very much helps. Non western country also have a right to develop economically. It's not that by being first to pollute the atmosphere. By reducing the incredible irresponsible per capita emissions of the USA other countries can develop within a fixed CO2 budget.
How do you define what an appropriate per capita CO2 budget is? Is it different for someone from China, India, and the US? What about the difference between individuals from rural agricultural communities vs a large city? If non-western countries have the 'right' to increase carbon emissions why don't poorer people in Western countries have the 'right' to increase their emissions?
What is the target level for developing economics? How does it make sense to mandate Western countries go to net-zero while all developing countries continue to dramatically increase per capita emissions?
Since it would be impossible to force China or India to meet the same standards the West self-imposes in this scenario, you are essentially asking Western individuals to pay a higher cost of living for NO net carbon reductions. This mandate will disproportionately affect poor people.
As a result I don't see how anyone expects radical carbon reduction policies to receive support from the Western world. I do not see how this is a rational course of action for an individual voter or for any developed economy.
> How do you define what an appropriate per capita CO2 budget is?
Negotiation of elected represenatatives constraint by a total budget.
> Is it different for someone from China, India, and the US?
Yes.
> What about the difference between individuals from rural agricultural communities vs a large city?
This is something that should be respected when the country allocations are made. However the distribution in the country itself is subject to decisions in the country.
> If non-western countries have the 'right' to increase carbon emissions why don't poorer people in Western countries have the 'right' to increase their emissions?
Because countries with unequal wealth distributions shouldn't be rewarded or allowed to externalize (by taking up more CO2 budget) their societal wealth distriubtution. However in terms of allocation of the budget in the country i would find poorer people getting more a workable solution.
> What is the target level for developing economics?
Being able work afford cost due to climate change. Being able to live a live without deprivation. Such that people won't need to be prevented at gun point from fleeing into the richer countries. That be a good start.
> How does it make sense to mandate Western countries go to net-zero while all developing countries continue to dramatically increase per capita emissions?
Because the consequences otherwise are ugly. The western countries could of course invest heavily to into developing countries with the goal to direct their growth. However i am not sure collolianlist meddling will be appreciated by people in developing countries.
> Since it would be impossible to force China or India to meet the same standards the West self-imposes in this scenario, you are essentially asking Western individuals to pay a higher cost of living for NO net carbon reductions. This mandate will disproportionately affect poor people.
If the mandate will disproportionately affect poor people it was implemented badly on a inner country basis. Inside your country you can do redistribution to make it less impactfull on poor people.
> I do not see how this is a rational course of action for an individual voter or for any developed economy.
Yeah, it is a case of a tragedy of the (unmanaged) commons. I don't think that this approach is feasible but i adopt this position none the less as any compromise which i am a part of will be pulled in a direction i find preferable for all mankind according to my ethics. I choose my position to optimize the resulting compromise.
Let’s say I’m from Netherlands and create dozens of companies, local, nearshore and offshore to both reduce the taxes I pay and to top up my carbon emission quota.
Clearly we're talking about different interpretations of "taxing carbon". I'm quite uninformed, but the simplest thing would be to tax fossil fuel companies per unit of raw fossil fuel they extract from the ground. That's it. They can't lie about how much they extracted: that's securities fraud. Splitting into smaller companies, offshoring, IP licensing or other elaborate tax avoidance mechanisms don't work because you aren't taxing "net income" or anything else that can be gamed.
If a country refuses to impose the same tax on its domestic fossil fuel extractors, tariff or embargo all of its exports until it complies.
This will only work if the biggest importers start doing this right away.
