Talk:Carbon tax

Carbon tax implementation correction

First, I am not an active Wikimedia contributor, so I am not familiar with the policies here, and look forwarding to learning about them. However, I have been teaching a course on environmental economics at a local community college (Front Range Community College in Colorado) for over ten years, and have read deeply into this topic. So I would like to suggest that some of the information about how a carbon tax is implemented seems flawed: a carbon tax is not based on emissions. Emissions are caused by burning fossil fuels. A cap and trade program is based on emissions; but a carbon tax is not based on the burning of fossil fuels. Ideally, a carbon tax is paid once, at the point that the fossil fuel enters the economy; in other words, by the first wholesaler that sells the fossil fuel. If you read this page on the Citizen Climate Lobby website, this is explained; see this sentence in the section titled "Pricing Carbon 101: What is Carbon Pricing?": "This fee is based on the metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) the fuel would generate, and it would be assessed at the earliest point of sale into the economy...".

I do not profess to be an expert on this topic, but given the serious misconception on this policy tool, and the critical importance it is likely to play in public discussion on the topic, I would hope that Wikipedia can correct this here. I would be glad to contribute more references to support this position, if needed.

Best regards, Rick Casey instructor, environmental economics, Front Range Community College — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rickcasey (talk • contribs) 19:25, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Rickcasey, are you still available to help improve this article? It is on our to do list as part of this project. EMsmile (talk) 14:45, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello EMsmile: sorry for the delayed response. Yes, I am available to help improve this article. I will try to use the wikipedia email function to contact you to discuss. Rickcasey (talk) 22:33, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Removed further reading section

I've removed the further reading section as it's not adding value (outdated anyway).

• Aldy, J. (9 August 2007). "Cap-and-Trade vs. Emission Tax: An Introduction". climatepolicy.org. ClimatePolicy. Archived from the original on 22 January 2008. Retrieved 30 August 2009.
• Cuervo, J.; V.P. Gandhi (1 May 1998). "Carbon Taxes – Their Macroeconomic Effects and Prospects for Global Adoption – A Survey of the Literature. Working Paper No. 98/73". International Monetary Fund, Fiscal Affairs Department. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
• Dower, R.C.; M.B. Zimmerman (August 1992). The right climate for carbon taxes: Creating economic incentives to protect the environment. World Resources Institute website. ISBN 9780915825783. Retrieved 12 May 2010.
• Fisher, B.S.; et al. (1996). An Economic Assessment of Policy Instruments for Combating Climate Change. In: Climate Change 1995: Economic and Social Dimensions of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (J.P. Bruce et al. Eds.). This version: Printed by Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, and New York. Web version: IPCC website. ISBN 978-0-521-56854-8. EMsmile (talk) 14:49, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

What to do about "Implementation by country"?

I've moved the section "Implementation by country" to the end for now as it was much bigger than the other sections. I've also given it a sub-structure by region. However, I wonder if we are better off splitting this off into a spin-off article? It's otherwise rather dominating. My other concern is that a lot of this info is nowadays available (and perhaps more up to date) in the "climate change by country" articles, e.g. climate change in the United States. So is it really useful to have a full listing of countries here (with the content probably being a bit out of date by now). Pinging @Sadads and @InformationToKnowledge and @Chidgk1. EMsmile (talk) 15:11, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

I notice a lot of them start “Country X does not have a carbon tax but (some not very interesting details about how one was once discussed)”.

So those could be deleted or moved to the country articles I guess Chidgk1 (talk) 06:44, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Good point. I have moved those section now to the country articles. Also for Canada I moved the info for the different provinces to the respective sub-articles like carbon pricing in Canada. The "implementation by country" section is still very long but at least not quite as long as before. EMsmile (talk) 08:43, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

+ to @Chidgk1's observation that a lot of this is full historical reflection on the conversations about the tax -- I wonder if we could move a big chunk of the discussion parts into the sub articles of "Energy in..." or similar, the map and topline descriptions of the most interesting examples in each region could be better than what is going on right now. Outlinking to the Energy in Articles might be more strategical as well, Sadads (talk) 19:59, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

For example, all the European ones have complicated, unnecessarily detailed "politics of the tax in context" -- worth maintaining for historical memory, but not important for this particular article, Sadads (talk) 20:00, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi User:Sadads, thanks for your suggestion. I agree with you and have now moved most of the country information to the respective "Energy in..." articles. Sometimes I was wondering if I shouldn't rather move it to the "Climate change in... " articles because the info on carbon tax would fit in either type of article (so there is a bit of overlap which is not ideal). What should I do with the remaining country examples? Also move those or leave these sections as examples? For the Costa Rica example, I think it should be moved but I couldn't find a clear article where I could move it to. EMsmile (talk) 14:15, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Suggested revisions from IPCC author

As part of the Wikipedia:Meetup/SDGs/Communication of environment SDGs project, I’m proposing some minor revisions to this article. This would include revisions to the structure, some content suggestions, and the incorporation of a broader set of references. These suggestions are based on comments from Michael Grubb, convening Lead Author for Chapter 1 of the IPCC AR6 WGIII report.

Organizational issues:

• A new section, dealing with the evolution in practice, the empirical lessons, and those implications would be helpful. It could be located between current Sections 2 (Economic theory) and 3 (Impacts).
• Section 4 (Supporters) should be shortened.

Other general comments:

• Disciplinary bias. The article mostly a text of economics, which the general reader may find hard to access. It doesn’t address much at all the other social science perspectives.
• Lack of balance. Most of the core text appears to be written by economists advocating carbon taxes – even when it strays into non-economic issues. In truth, almost every attempt to introduce carbon taxes has encountered severe public (and business) opposition. And there are plenty of academic articles now charting political opposition (not just of industry …) as the prime challenge.
• Regional bias. The coverage seems overly focused on the US, with brief nods to the few places that have actually implemented carbon taxes (Scandinavia, British Colombia, others with a range of energy taxation policies).
• Incorporation of a broader set of references. For instance Climate Policy>Carbon Pricing & Emission Trading has a list of excellent recent articles, some of which could be incorporated here.

I will be working to incorporate these suggestions into the article. Dtetta (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi Dtetta, thanks for that. Just to close the loop, have you in the meantime addressed most/all of these comments? Are there any remaining to-dos that came out of this? Thanks. EMsmile (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

My edits focused on the organizational comments. These dealt with a small number of the sections. The other comments are more general and deal with the overall tone of the article. Additional work is needed to address these. Dtetta (talk) 00:21, 26 September 2023 (UTC)