I agree with the former, sort of. It would be like losing your life trying desperately to stop a bunch of suicides on your own. (Not sure if that counts as suicide) which is why there is in fact very strong movements towards international agreements on these matters.

e.g. one of the EU aviation rules specifically addresses that long distance flights leaving the EU need to leave with enough fuel on board, to disincentivize them stopping elsewhere to fill up on untaxed fuel.

But if they all don't do it, that is collective suicide (or if just one country continues on the path it's more like murder-suicide).

So we're trying to find a path where we can all work together with people we don't fully trust to do the thing that is best for all of us, even if we dont even fully agree on what that is.

Not an easy task. Especially when people would rather listen to fossil fuel lobbyists or their paid political pundits than economists on what would and wouldn't work.

Fortunately, I don’t need a study. Fuel costs rose in the US 40% over the last year before falling. If you want to know what happened in the US, pick up a newspaper and read about record high inflation.

Did it seem too reasonable a suggestion to phase it in over decades with plenty of advance notice? Too achievable, too simple, too sensible?

Not to mention, the "extra cost" would be getting paid to the government in your own country, not to Vladimir Putin or similar in another. And then new business opportunities would be created, again in your own country, to meet this new demand.

Luckily, we've actually started doing this already. It seems important that the people who complain about it being impossible seem to have not noticed that it's already started and been quite successful so far, giving confidence to people who are paying attention.

If that's the case, how bad can it actually be?

News story with a summary but there's plenty of source documents out there if you feel like a deep dive.