Politicians and legislation are purchased on the free market through lobbying. And then subsidies are merely a return on a smart investment.

I'm not actually sure if what I just wrote is parody or not. Arguments about "free markets" are always weird like that, since everybody seems to work with a different definition and they don't really seem to exist

Yea well "really" free markets don't actually exist so that distinction seems a little silly.

I mean obviously the subsidies are bad but removing them isn't going to solve much of anything by itself.

If you suddenly make using fossil fuels 10x more expensive people will switch off of them ASAP.

> If you suddenly make using fossil fuels 10x more expensive people will switch off of them ASAP.

Yea, this just isn't true. Rich people will just pay more for the same thing. Poor people will just have to pay more to even get to their jobs. It's pure laziness to put this on dogma rather than actually come up with decent policy to shape the market.

Rich people have money, but they aren't stupid: why would they throw their money away on nonrenewable energy when they can just switch to something cheaper?

> Rich people have money, but they aren't stupid: why would they throw their money away on nonrenewable energy when they can just switch to something cheaper?

What alternative is there to a private jet or a yacht? No, you have to get the fear of prison (or worse) in them to get them to act in a socially rational manner.

To begin with, private jets and yachts are a trivial proportion of carbon emissions, so they're not really what matters.

But to actually answer your question, battery-electric yachts or aviation powered by biofuels.

Sure, but it's rather indicative of larger use of carbon emitting technology. Neither of your suggested replacements actually exist in any meaningful way, and virtually every investment comes with significant CO2 emissions.

Battery-electric yachts and biofuels aren't popular because they're more expensive, not because there is any technological barrier to their existence. Make them the less expensive option and market demand for them increases.

Or, we could just make yachts illegal.