Tax repeals are very rare, once they're worked into the budget they are there to stay and usually will expand to pay for other things besides the reason they were originally created.
Since ultimately a carbon limitation is going to mean more expensive products, it is important to limit it as much as possible.
Also I don't see how a cap-and-trade system is going to be more difficult to enforce than a tax, you are still going to have to check if all the companies have paid their taxes.
Of course, you omitted that the same must be true for cap and trade. The person who can save CO2 at a cost of $2 would have no preference between enacting the change or not if they were only to be paid $2. You'd need to pay them more. Like, $2.01 or $3 if we're only using integers. Exactly like the tax.
Except for that the goal isn't to punish polluters, it's to get carbon to a level that won't result in the end of human civilization. By moralizing the issue you're just making it more likely that we won't get there.
That's not the goal. What matters is the total amount of pollution, not how much any individual pollutes.
There are perverse cases. Veblen and Giffen goods (higher prices increase consumption). But generally, the relationship holds.
A cap-and-trade or carbon tax system, to work, has to establish how much carbon can be emitted (I'm ignoring for the moment the argument that the answer may well be "none").
A tax or trade mechanism both invoke market mechanisms to allow individual carbon emitters or absorbers to determine how much activity they'll undertake, including seeking alternatives.
If a tax or C&T at a given level isn't sufficient, then the solution is to change the basis level. The result is still (in theory) achieved in the market.
You and ThrustVectoring are arguing two components of the same mechanism.
See also the Jevons Paradox: increasing efficiency (without also increasing prices) increases the amount of a good or resource consumed.
If you want less of something, raise its price. E.g., tax it.
Cars are not the problem, there is no one thing that is the problem. Simply being alive and doing things uses energy, there is no way around that.
And BTW if you do the math a bicyclist (in the US, eating a typical US diet) emits more CO2 per mile than a small car. Assumptions: The bicyclist is riding in addition to any exercise, the riding is not exercise, and the bicyclist eats normal food. A bicyclist who prefers organic, or local, would definitely emit more (both of those emit more CO2 in the growing than regular food).
It's a surprising result, I know. But it's because humans are not very efficient in turning food energy into miles, and cars are reasonably efficient. It doesn't help that growing food takes a lot of energy, especially if you force yourself to only eat local, if you do that energy really goes up.
Just a claim that you need to do math. Parroting climate-denying, anti-intellectual nonsense is worth calling out.
They have a chart showing CO2 per calories for different foods which goes from 11 to 1431.
But when they do the final result for a bicycle using some kind of global average food consumption they use the number .144!
Unless I've really messed up my math, the number for a bicycle should be around 200 to 1000 times higher than what they show.
Next they take car emissions, do some "magic math" and change them from 42 g/km to 229g/km.
Using their own numbers, but fixing their math shows a bicycle emitting more than a car.
You have.
The chart is in (g per 100 kcal)
>"magic math" and change them from 42 g/km to 229g/km.
42 is for production of the car 229 is for ‘well to wheel' emissions (i.e. exhaust-pipe plus those emitted to produce the petrol).
No "magic" required.
The real issue with emitted CO2 is not the quantity at the exhaust-pipe versus the quantity exhaled by a cyclist. The CO2 emitted by the cyclist was absorbed by plants in the preceding months. The CO2 emitted by the car was absorbed by plants in a previous era of the earth. The cyclist allows you to leave the oil in the ground keeping the contained carbon out of the atmosphere.
That's why produce is so expensive - it takes a LOT of energy to grow it.
At the extreme end, roses are not actually much plant matter, they are expensive in large part because you can't treat them like bricks. On that continuum Produce is closer to flower than grains.
This result is useless since it makes impression that those miles are interchangeable while they are not. No bicyclist will make same amount of miles per unit of time as car driver. Bicyclist will make other choices: living closer to the job, working remotely, etc.
Have you never seen urban traffic?
Why is that different from the tax approach? Wouldn't taxing the 50,000 minor producers appropriate to their levels of pollution be equally as expensive?
Wikipedia has "from less than $1/tC to over $1,500/tC." It's an inexact science.
tax everyone to change behavior is the best route plus it does tend to stop the mini games that go on with trying to transfer funds to contributors and the like
Imagine that you had five major producers putting out 30% of airborne carbon, and 50,000 minor producers putting out 70%. The cost of administering a cap and trade system to the minor producers would be incredibly expensive - the legislation would instead focus on gouging the five major producers. Also imagine that the 50,000 minor producers could very easily cut their production of carbon in half.
The price should be set to the amount of damage the externality causes. Current estimates of the social cost of carbon is ~$220 per ton. http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nc...
Cap and trade punishes large players - taxes are fair because they impose the same fees on everyone.
Cap and Trade being the least expensive way possible is also a terrible loss for good tax reform. If we implement a responsible carbon tax, the offset income can be used to reduce associated corporation taxes, sales taxes, or even income taxes.
An optimal tax system taxes things and behaviors we don't want, and subsidises things and behaviors we do want. Let's get rid of an income tax, and replace it with a environmental tax. More money in your pocket, and cleaner air.