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A comment on Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbon payment from Norway. Parent comment

Re:Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbo... by npongratz on Thursday February 21, 2019 @12:45PM (#19218803)
So the value add is to artificially add a cost to one form of energy production to make it cost more than another form? That does not sound like a "value add", but rather a simple "cost add," with government agents making the demands and meting out financial (and eventually, physical) punishment for non-compliance.

And we really want to add complexity and inconvenience to 2/3rds of households just so they can get their money back?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbo... by jaggederest on Thursday February 21, 2019 @01:31PM (#19219240)
It's called a pigovian tax, and it's widely considered the most efficient way to deal with these kinds of negative externalities.

For most lower income households, they would actually be receiving a net increase in their income, since they emit less than the mean carbon output.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Indonesia reports reduced deforestation, triggering carbo... by dontreact on Thursday February 21, 2019 @05:40PM (#19221236)
Burning fossil fuels has a real cost to everyone which is not priced appropriately by the free market (this is a well known economic effect known as a negative externality). This tax corrects for the artificially low costs.
[ Parent | on HN ]