- Does a carbon tax work? British Columbia’s regional tax suggests it does, with emissions and political opposition to the tax falling together.
- Would you cycle to work if you were paid to do so? After record air pollution last year, Milan’s about to try it out.
- Top marks for creative naming to BeetCoin, a project from Slow Money which funds organic farming entrepreneurs.
- Rewilding Britain on how rewilding can prevent flooding.
- Speaking of wild, Charles Foster has been running curious experiments in understanding nature by attempting to live like an animal.
Carbon tax hits people who live in cold and remote areas, who have higher transport and heating costs.
In countries like the UK, this aggravates regional economic imbalance, with the associated problems of unemployment at the periphery, and high housing costs and overloaded infrastructure in London and the South East.
Bad idea.
It could do, though it depends how it is designed and what other support or exemptions are available. BC’s tax is constructed to be revenue neutral, for example, so as people pay more for carbon the government is able to cut other taxes elsewhere. I haven’t looked into how they have delivered those rebates, but if you cut for the poorest first it would be progressive overall.
There’s also a credit available.for those on low incomes, and a ‘northern and rural homeowner benefit’ for those demographics you mention, so they’ve thought about this stuff.
I’m not really an advocate of carbon taxes, which is why I don’t mention them very often, but I’m interested in what other places are trying and how it’s working.