Re:Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a singl...
by bmicraft on Thursday September 30, 2021 @12:09PM
(#28707972)
The amount of carbon emitted by a car is directly proportional to the amount of fuel used, so what you really are talking about are fuel taxes which are very common already
Then increase train fare so it’s at least as expensive per-carbon-emitted as driving. Since trains emit much less carbon, it will end up being cheaper to get from point A to point B by train.
Driving or taking the train has another cost, congestion. (more drivers means it takes everyone longer to get to where they’re going, more riders means some people might not be able to fit on the train. that second one used to be a common occurrence to me.)
Now that might seem hideously unfair to poor people. The solution is to take all the revenue collected this way and redistribute it throughout the jurisdiction where the law is enforced. The poorest would actually see an increase in their purchasing power. That’s because poor people emit less carbon on average, so if e.g. a poor person emits 1 ton per day and the average is 2 tons per day (making up numbers), they would pay the tax cost of emitting 1 ton but receive the tax cost of emitting two tons. The money would come from wealthy people who emit 3 tons but only receive the cost of emitting 2. That way everyone is incentivized to emit less without it unfairly burdening the poor.