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But those who use things that contribute the most to these emissions should pay more carbon emissions tax than those who contribute less. In the main well off people have a greater carbon footprint than those that are less well off.
This is not an attack on the rich. The rich pay for all they use and they are welcome to whatever they pay for. But, they do not pay for the extra carbon emissions that are caused by their ability to pay for that extra.
Going back to, “who should pay a carbon emissions tax” lets take airline travel for an example. Here is a calculation for various travelers traveling in different classes on an airline. I do not know how accurate these figures are but it is the differential that we are interested in.
These are the return flight carbon emissions from a trip from New York to London.
Economy Class = 1,826 lbs.
Business Class = 3,706 lbs.
First Class = 5,936 lbs.
This means that people in business class are emitting twice the carbon as those in economy and those in first class 3 times the amount. Ha! You might say but the first class passenger is still just one passenger and they are already paying much more than economy class. As mention before they are not paying for emissions they are paying for the extra space, extra luggage allowance, they get to use metal knives and forks (plastic for economy weighing less) and a host of other things. Apart from this lets just work out a couple of things.
The average unladen (no fuel no passengers) weight of a around 190,000 lbs. Typically this size aircraft with three classes (economy, business and first) can take 180 passengers. Overall this works out to 1055lbs per passenger.
Hold on a minute, first class passengers get over 3 times the space of an economy class passenger. Their luggage allowance is higher and a heap of other things. If the aircraft had only one class (economy) the aircraft could hold 255 passengers (Boeing 767 stats) This then would equate to 745lbs per passenger. So technically first class passengers are at least taking up 2235lbs of the weight of the aircraft compared to the economy class passenger 745lbs.
What about the weight of the passengers? Well they do add weight but the average weight of the passenger is what? 150 – 160lbs. Just a small part of the overall weight.
Looking at this it would be unfair for an airline that may have to levy a carbons emissions tax on a per passenger basis. It should be charged per class seat. As politicians are always spouting they believe on the “user pays principle”
Now paying for emissions due to cars is much simpler. All one has to do is put a carbon tax on petrol. If you have a fuel-guzzling monster you pay more tax through your petrol purchases and this is how it should be. Cars using LPG which emit less CO2 the tax per gallon should be less than gasoline.
One thing I hear about is that wood fires should be banned. Well maybe they should. But, just look at this carbon calculation. I have a wood fire and calculate that I use about 55lbs of timber a day over a 10-hour period.
Open Fire 55lbs wood 275lbs carbon.
Wood slow combustion heater 55lbs wood 12.5lbs carbon.
Electric fire 30 kilowatts 66lbs carbon
Natural gas/lpg 108megajoules 16.66lbs carbon
All calculations were done using the Carbon Calculator at Carboncops
Well, what a revelation. The most efficient way of heating and the least emitter of carbon is a wood slow combustion heater. This is what I have. Apart from this I live in on a country property and all the wood I use is natural fallen timber which would rot away and produce carbon emissions anyway.
The big baddie is the open wood fire and in this case should probably be banned. Also consider that my 55lbs of wood consumed in my slow combustion fire over a 10 hour period is less than that would be consumed in an open fire over the same period.
So how do we make user pays here? Electricity and natural gas is easy they can be given a carbon emissions tax but what about wood. Difficult. But open wood fires being by far the worst of any should be banned, specially in the city areas. Sorry guys get a natural or LPG simulated wood fire if you want the ambience.
In all we all should be trying to do something to reduce our carbon footprint I recommend the “Home Renewable Energy” Book that will give you some ideas how.
So what do you feel we should consider on who pays a carbon emissions tax to try pay for the reduction of global warming . We all know what causes global warming so we should not be reticent in trying to fix it.
For your interest here are some related articles on carbon emissions tax.
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- Implications of a cap-and-trade program - Market-oriented approaches to reducing carbon emissions (such as a cap-and-trade program or a carbon tax) are much more efficient than command-and-control approaches (such as regulations that require across-the-board reductions by all …
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