Do you
agree that carbon emissions have to come down to take the edge off global
warming? Or do you have doubts about what they call climate change?
Then just simply reduce smog and other lung-unfriendly pollutants but how do
you do it? The rate we are going, what happening is, it is as if
taxpayers are being milked to subsidize renewable energy. Do we have to
launch a carbon-trading market? Or should we tighten energy-consumption
regulations on appliances and cars, or how about carbon taxes?
Everything
has its imperfection. An example is the carbon trading markets have been
an abject failure. Europe was flooded with carbon credits, pushing their
value down to almost nothing. It had fraud-prone market.
The
less risky choice is a comprehensive carbon tax that affect to all hydrocarbon
fuels, from gasoline to propane. Since there are no exemptions it is
democratic. And since if there is one thing governments do efficiently,
it is easy to administer and it is collect taxes. Consequently, it
provides each consumer the liberty to decide the cheaper energy use that
best go well with his or her budget. But the question is, is it
fair? If the extra tax income is offset with lower taxes elsewhere then
it is revenue neutral, which makes it fair.
At
least the one in British Columbia works considered a global model, does.
An independent study found that per capita fuel consumption in B.C. fell
17.4 per cent in the tax’s first four years (to 2012) while greenhouse gas
emissions fell 11 per cent. And the tax has not indignant the economy.
