Even if there were demonstrable effects on earth's global temperature from burning carbon fuels, their costs are probably closer to 60¢/tonne than $60. And most fuel is already more heavily taxed than that - ⅔ of the cost of filling up a car's tank is direct tax (in Europe, at least).
I've read muchly on CO2 taxes and seen ranges from 30USD a tonne Carbon now (equivalent to 80 USD a tonne of Carbon Dioxide) all the way up to Nordhaus explaining that the carbon tax should be low at first and assets should be sweated, old cars kept running rather than replaced for example, but the future should be looking at 200USD a tonne Carbon dioxide. What's your best analysis why the mainstream econ is wrong and the tax should be under $1 a tonne?
I've no argument with the economists, but they're just applying costs that have been produced by the climate modellers. We can all see that average temperatures are increasing somewhat, and agree that some part of the rise is the result of humans emitting additional CO2 by burning fossil fuels. This raises two questions: how much of the rise is due to CO2, and what will the cost be of continuing to emit it? And the only honest answer is 'nobody knows' - the models are all hopeless.
All the assessments I've seen of the 'costs' of increasing temperatures include solely the negatives and ignore the positives - e.g. far more deaths result from low temperatures than from high; extra CO2 in the atmosphere increases crop yields, etc.
In any case, vehicle fuel (in Europe) is already taxed at about $1 a litre, that's over $400/tCO2e.
"Who would be using the more expensive fossils in place of the cheaper renewables in that first place?"
Weelll Ackshuallyyyyyy....
The other problem renewables have (wind and solar at least, which is what everyone means when they say renewable) is that they are intermittent, unreliable and non-dispatchable. That means if there's a sudden demand for more 'leccy you can't use a wind farm to supply it. So even in a case where rainbow farting unicorns roam the earth and renewables are as cheap as chips you'll want something else to handle the load when 5 million households decide to put the kettle on at half time. You can of course solve that by using massive lithium bombs err batteries or something like Dinorwig. But the latter is hydro and involves dams and concrete and therefore is nasty and the former requires so much lithium it is impossible. So there'll always be a few natural gas plants hanging around to handle the load.
This is why I sometimes get free or even negatively priced electricity. I signed up for the Octopus Agile tariff. The price changes every 30 minutes and yes it does go to zero or negative... usually on windy and sunny days. Because the gas plants are presumably bidding to offset the costs of shutting down and restarting again.
Even if there were demonstrable effects on earth's global temperature from burning carbon fuels, their costs are probably closer to 60¢/tonne than $60. And most fuel is already more heavily taxed than that - ⅔ of the cost of filling up a car's tank is direct tax (in Europe, at least).
I've read muchly on CO2 taxes and seen ranges from 30USD a tonne Carbon now (equivalent to 80 USD a tonne of Carbon Dioxide) all the way up to Nordhaus explaining that the carbon tax should be low at first and assets should be sweated, old cars kept running rather than replaced for example, but the future should be looking at 200USD a tonne Carbon dioxide. What's your best analysis why the mainstream econ is wrong and the tax should be under $1 a tonne?
I've no argument with the economists, but they're just applying costs that have been produced by the climate modellers. We can all see that average temperatures are increasing somewhat, and agree that some part of the rise is the result of humans emitting additional CO2 by burning fossil fuels. This raises two questions: how much of the rise is due to CO2, and what will the cost be of continuing to emit it? And the only honest answer is 'nobody knows' - the models are all hopeless.
All the assessments I've seen of the 'costs' of increasing temperatures include solely the negatives and ignore the positives - e.g. far more deaths result from low temperatures than from high; extra CO2 in the atmosphere increases crop yields, etc.
In any case, vehicle fuel (in Europe) is already taxed at about $1 a litre, that's over $400/tCO2e.
"Who would be using the more expensive fossils in place of the cheaper renewables in that first place?"
Weelll Ackshuallyyyyyy....
The other problem renewables have (wind and solar at least, which is what everyone means when they say renewable) is that they are intermittent, unreliable and non-dispatchable. That means if there's a sudden demand for more 'leccy you can't use a wind farm to supply it. So even in a case where rainbow farting unicorns roam the earth and renewables are as cheap as chips you'll want something else to handle the load when 5 million households decide to put the kettle on at half time. You can of course solve that by using massive lithium bombs err batteries or something like Dinorwig. But the latter is hydro and involves dams and concrete and therefore is nasty and the former requires so much lithium it is impossible. So there'll always be a few natural gas plants hanging around to handle the load.
This is why I sometimes get free or even negatively priced electricity. I signed up for the Octopus Agile tariff. The price changes every 30 minutes and yes it does go to zero or negative... usually on windy and sunny days. Because the gas plants are presumably bidding to offset the costs of shutting down and restarting again.