Re:Flight risk: can we take the carbon out of air travel?
by rswail on Tuesday September 03, 2019 @09:28AM
(#20866266)
Countries already apply taxes to flights in or outbound from their territories.
Airlines already apply "fuel surcharges" as part of their ticketing.
Adding a, for example, EU-wide tax on outbound flights based on the distance of origin/destination, would be one way of implementing.
Getting international agreement on, for example, having it apply only to outbound flights, would mean that is not a tax on imports, that could be considered a tariff.
The income could then be spent on subsidizing the other costs of decarbonization.
That’s very...optimistic of you. I wish I had the same trust in these systems.
Regardless I highly doubt there will be a global movement to kill air travel any time soon, there’s no world gov to implement this mass tax so it will have to be a few very brave souls who do it while trying to convince everyone it won’t result in a massive brain and money drain which will be multiple x bigger than the tax “return”. Not to mention lost productivity.
Asia and the US (I’m assuming EU would be the first) will suddenly sound like a far better place to live and do business, then there will be a ton of disincentives to follow suit.
Remember when France was going to do their millionaire tax? That didn’t last long once the consequences became apparent and they could be dismissed with campaign slogans.