If addressing climate change relies on people changing habits against their selfish interests, then we are doomed.
The externality should be internalised with a carbon tax. It's the simple, most obvious solution and it will cause selfish interest and ethical choices to align when it comes to carbon emission.
A tax will always be passed on to the consumer, even if the govt taxes Ford, it will just make the car more expensive.
Using game theory, a question could be "how do we get Ford to make more electric cars, improve efficiency of electric car production, and incentivize them to advertise electric cars?"
My take is that businesses drive change, not consumers. On the whole, consumers are told what they want.
Consumers will see that EVs are cheaper (post-tax) and will switch to EVs as a consequence.
You can make the tax revenue neutral.
Consumer want cars (and appliances in general) that, all else being equal, are cheaper to own and use.
With a carbon tax, Ford can decide whether they want to offer more efficient ICE or electric cars to reach that goal.
(And consumers can decide whether to use any of these options that Ford offers, or to just drive less.
Or, for some, to just suck up the cost and drive the same as before.)
That's one outcome, but not the only one. Things like emission taxation make sense, even if there's no remediation financed with the proceeds.
See eg the sulphur dioxide emissions cap and trade program. (https://voxeu.org/article/lessons-climate-policy-us-sulphur-...) I don't think they used the proceeds to fund sulphur dioxide capture.
> This is possibly meaning different mode of transport, some things maybe remote, bicycles, trains, others.
Yes, exactly. Also: just forgoing some trips. Or driving more efficiently etc.
*This has since been repealed, a decision I strongly disagree with.
I'd want to put driving-less on similar footing to buying a fancier car.
A carbon tax does that automatically with no extra bureaucracy.
(I'm all for taking the proceeds of a carbon tax and distributing them equally amongst all voters, if you want to make the whole thing revenue neutral for both the government and the 'average' consumer.)