Carbon taxes theoretically exist to help motivate companies to invest in ways of doing things that don’t require carbon, but are they effective in reducing emissions? Let’s take a deep look at what they are, how they work, who uses them, and whether or not they’re effective at reducing emissions.
What Is a Carbon Tax?
A carbon tax is a fee that governments impose on emitters for each ton of greenhouse gases they create. The primary purpose of the tax is to encourage businesses and individuals to find an alternative way to do things as a way of avoiding the tax. That’s right, it exists so that people will avoid it.
Carbon taxes can take several forms, but there are two common ones that most governments use as their primary options.
The first form is called an emissions tax, which applies directly to the number of greenhouse gases someone produces. Scientists have various methods of estimating this, but as a volumetric ton of gas is quite a lot, they’re accurate enough for tax purposes.
The other tax on carbon emissions involves putting a specific tax on any goods or services with a clear relation to greenhouse gases, such as gasoline.
Why Do Governments Apply Carbon Taxes?
Governments apply carbon taxes for many reasons. Some specifically want to reduce carbon emissions through a federal carbon tax, while others focus more on fossil fuels and encourage a change to electric alternatives. Other governments may see it as a good source of revenue, especially for companies with significant carbon emissions and high profits.
In my experience, the truth is that there’s usually a range of interests and influences behind carbon taxes, so there’s never a single person or idea behind them. Lawmakers often want to impose a federal carbon tax for different reasons, from regulating the country’s internal carbon price to discouraging industries they dislike.
Passing a federal law in Congress requires hundreds of lawmakers to agree to a proposal, and I can guarantee you that they’re voting yes or no for a wide range of reasons.
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Understanding Harmful Emissions
The government already restricts or taxes a wide range of harmful emissions from businesses and consumers. Most of this ultimately falls under the Environmental Protection Agency, which addresses everything from bed bugs and lead pipes to drinking water and, in many cases, greenhouse gas emissions.
The EPA is not all-powerful and does not have unlimited authority to regulate greenhouse gases. For example, in June 2022, the Supreme Court limited the EPA’s ability to manage carbon from power plants.
However, the EPA still has a lot of authority given to it by Congress and is ultimately one of the central operators governing carbon taxes and emissions in the United States. Greenhouse gases are just one of the harmful emissions the government already handles, although some people would say they’re among the most important.
The Science of the Atmosphere
Earth’s atmosphere is about five quadrillion tonnes of gas. For those who aren’t as familiar with metric measurements, a tonne is one thousand kilograms or about 2204 pounds. A typical SUV weighs roughly two tonnes. The actual volume of our atmosphere can vary somewhat depending on factors like distance from the sun and the amount of water vapor in the air.
Our atmosphere is about 78% nitrogen, slightly less than 21% oxygen, almost a percent of argon, and the rest is other gases. Carbon dioxide is about 0.04% of the atmosphere. That might sound like a small amount, but even small changes in the atmosphere’s makeup can have a significant effect on heat retention and equilibrium in nature.
Carbon Taxes in the United States
The United States does not currently have a national carbon tax. However, some states have regulations on carbon emissions or local carbon taxes that affect their economies. These taxes technically apply to all fossil fuels, but gasoline and diesel are the only ones significant enough for most parts of the public to notice.
Some people are seeing growing interest in a carbon tax, and carbon tax proposals are starting to take shape. However, there are many factors that lawmakers want to consider, like the exact carbon tax rate, the expected impact on emission reductions, and what to do with carbon tax revenue.
Some options include using it to reduce taxes on productive things like payroll, while others suggest using it for national infrastructure to deal with emissions or even paying it back to consumers. Any tax that goes into effect will probably have its money allocated to a full range of things.
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Design Elements of a Carbon Tax Proposal
Any carbon tax proposal needs to meet a few basic design guidelines. There’s plenty of debate for each section, so I’m not going to say that any one option here is the right way to go. However, I think that understanding these topics and what they mean will help you understand any proposal that lawmakers offer.
Scope
The scope of a carbon tax is the exact thing (or things) it applies to. For example, this could include a rate based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by gasoline when companies burn it, or in the emissions from factories and power plants.
(Gasoline is a common focus, but it’s hardly the only source of carbon emissions or carbon tax revenues.)
If you’re going to tax something, you must define what you’re taxing. If you can’t do that, then your law is too ambiguous, and there’s a good chance the courts will strike it down as unenforceable.
Point of Taxation
The point of taxation is where the government applies the tax. For example, sales taxes occur at a point of sale, such as a cash register or a gas pump. Governments can set a point of taxation practically anywhere, though nobody likes to be the point it happens. While there are many ways to define a point of taxation, most people call them upstream, midstream, and downstream.
An upstream point of taxation is an early point in the supply chain, where the smallest number of companies and people would be responsible for it. Upstream points typically include businesses like gas processing facilities, coal mining companies, and other entities that produce the raw materials for greenhouse gas emissions.
For an upstream point of taxation, the tax is essentially an estimate of how many greenhouse gases their products will emit when used. The tax is on future behavior, not something happening at the moment, but it’s easy to track and makes collecting carbon tax revenues far easier.
A midstream point of taxation is on entities that operate between raw material producers and consumers. For carbon taxes, this is mainly utility companies that provide electricity and similar services. Note the distinction between utilities and power plant companies, as these aren’t always the same.
Downstream points of taxation are essentially the point of use. These include industries, households, vehicles, and so on that use power, either directly (through burning fuel) or indirectly (by using electricity created by burning fuel).
The further down the stream a tax is, the more paperwork is involved because more people are paying in. Placing a tax upstream or midstream is usually a simpler option from an administrative view and has the added benefit of encouraging emission reductions by putting the cost, and therefore the motivation to avoid said cost, in as few places as possible.
As another example, let’s say that you want to tax one million people a dollar each. Most people will shrug, as this isn’t a significant amount. If you want to tax a single person one million dollars, it’s the same value, but that person has a ton of motivation to look for other options. That’s how a carbon tax differs or at least can differ, from a widespread tax.
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Tax Rate and Escalation Rate
The tax rate is the amount of the carbon tax. In many cases, the goal of taxes like this is to cover a minimum amount that anyone being taxed is responsible for. Some people call this the social cost of emissions, but despite the name, it also includes things like estimated environmental damages.
Carbon taxes can rise over time, which is known as their escalation rate. Escalating has two primary purposes. First, climate change damage is a snowball effect where it gets more severe over time, so the cost gets higher. Second, the increasing fees provide an additional reason for emitters to focus on making changes.
Remember, one primary point of a carbon tax is to encourage people to avoid paying it. The higher the tax, the more people will try to avoid it. If the tax is too low, companies don’t have the financial motivation to worry about avoiding emissions.
In simpler terms, the idea behind the tax rate is that money is the primary motivator for most companies, and thus the most effective way to get them to act.
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Distributional Impact
One vital point of consideration for carbon taxes is the effect of the tax on households of different income levels. Lower-income households spend a higher percentage of their income on energy, even if they use far less energy than high-income households. Any taxes on carbon that increase energy costs can have a disproportionate impact on lower-income households.
Governments have many options for this. They can accept the impact on low-income households, but they can also choose to apply some of the revenue gained and reduce or even eliminate the effective tax for families below a certain point.
Some proponents of carbon taxes argue that this is ethically important because low-income households usually generate far fewer emissions than wealthy ones, and asking them to shoulder a disproportionate burden for mitigating the impacts of climate change strikes many people as unfair.
Competition
The energy market is global. It’s not hard to implement a federal carbon tax if Congress decides to, but that only does so much to help the issue if companies can look for other suppliers that aren’t subject to the carbon tax proposals.
Remember, a fundamental assumption of the carbon tax is that companies will look for the most cost-effective way of avoiding it, assuming the tax is high enough. Unfortunately, some of those options merely shift the emissions elsewhere. Energy taxation that doesn’t help countries meet emissions targets isn’t helpful.
Competition is more complex than just generating electricity for manufacturing. Carbon taxes can affect things like steel, concrete, and a wide range of chemicals. Some experts suggest a border adjustment, which kicks in when companies buy or sell internationally, to manage competitiveness and ensure the tax reduces emissions.
Revenue
As I briefly discussed earlier, almost all taxes bring in revenue in some form. (It’s possible to have a tax of $0 that brings in no revenue, but that’s rare, and usually only exists so that a legislative body can increase said tax later if they need to.)
The main decision for how to use revenues is a political choice, so it tends to reflect the priorities of whoever’s in charge at the moment. There is a wide range of options, from funding technological advancements in low-carbon areas or reducing taxes in other areas to encourage economic activity.
Reallocating funds to reduce taxes elsewhere can be highly effective because it’s simultaneously making one thing easier and another harder, or at least less profitable. Companies tend to be responsive to that.
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Carbon Emissions by the Numbers
Carbon emissions have been going up steadily for decades, though we haven’t had the technology to measure and track that for a long time. One of the most significant contributors to this is coal.
We’ve used coal for a long time, primarily because it burns for longer and is better than wood, meaning less labor for collecting it. Nations began building coal power plants for homes around the 1880s, and they’ve been running since the demand for electricity continues to grow.
A typical house in the United States uses over 10,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. According to the Energy Information Administration, it takes about 1.12 pounds of coal to produce one kWh of electricity. We also know that each pound of coal burned creates about 2.07 pounds of carbon dioxide.
With these numbers, we can do a little math to understand carbon emissions better. 1.12 pounds times 10,000 kilowatt-hours is about 11,200 pounds of coal to power a household annually. Multiplying that by our carbon dioxide rate gives an average household production of 23,184 pounds of carbon dioxide, or about ten tonnes, per year.
Now, this is only part of the picture. Natural gas accounts for more energy usage in the United States than coal and produces about half as much carbon dioxide. Gasoline for cars is about halfway between natural gas and coal. It’s difficult to get exact numbers, but as a generous estimate, we can say that the rough average is about 60% of coal’s maximum.
With that rough estimate, let’s say that a typical household produces about 14,000 pounds of greenhouse gases per year. The United States has around 123.6 million households, so that’s 1.7 trillion pounds of greenhouse gases each year, exclusively from the United States and not counting other countries with meaningful emissions.
With the entire atmosphere only five quadrillion tonnes, you can see how fast emissions can start to affect our atmosphere.
Carbon Sinks
If the numbers above worry you, I’m happy to report that the news isn’t all bad. Those are all emissions but don’t reflect the entire life cycle of carbon. You see, the planet has many carbon sinks that absorb carbon dioxide, including plants.
The basic process of photosynthesis is about absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. CO2 becomes O2, and that carbon atom stays in the plant as part of its structure. When we talk about carbon-based life forms (like those on Earth), this is the carbon in question.
We’re still producing more carbon dioxide than the Earth is absorbing, but given the correct setup, it’s possible to absorb huge amounts of carbon with comparatively little effort on humanity’s part. Carbon taxes can help encourage this.
What Is Carbon Pricing?
Carbon pricing is essentially another word for carbon taxes. The two are mostly synonymous, but carbon tax refers specifically to things imposed by the government, while carbon pricing can include non-governmental penalties.
Do Carbon Taxes Reduce Emissions?
Unfortunately, the evidence is sparse on whether carbon taxes reduce emissions. This lack of evidence is a specific point of complaint in some analyses of the subject, where researcher Jessica Green noted in 2021 that carbon taxes appear to have only modest effects on emissions so far.
It’s important to remember that these reports don’t mean that carbon taxes don’t work. What they mean is that, first of all, there aren’t many studies or hard evidence showing whether they work as expected. Without data, you can’t get conclusions, and lack of evidence is not proof.
Second, these can indicate that carbon taxes may not be high enough. People who rush to complain about high tax rates should remember that the goal is to let companies avoid the tax by investing in alternatives that don’t produce greenhouse gases. The higher the tax, the stronger the motivation.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some other questions that people have about carbon taxes and similar topics.
How much revenue would a carbon tax raise?
That depends on the size of the tax, which could increase over time. We can estimate revenue based on known emissions, however. Some experts suggest taxing at about $25 per ton of CO2, which is equivalent to under $200 per household each year, and likely paid by companies instead of individuals.
On a broader level, we can expect a price in this range to raise about $125 billion each year. I don’t think it’s likely that we’ll see a federal carbon tax in the next few years, though, so more likely we’ll only see taxes in a few states and drastically lower revenue overall.
Can carbon taxes promote growth?
Yes, if the government applies the tax revenue well. That’s a big if, especially because people have significant disagreements on what constitutes appropriate government spending.
Areas for growth usually include options like reducing other taxes to compensate or helping pay down the federal deficit. For example, if Congress decides to balance things by eliminating taxes for low-income earners, that puts more money in their pockets. Poor households tend to spend most of what they make, so reducing their taxes spurs economic activity.
Carbon taxes can also spur indirect growth, such as through funding research. Technological breakthroughs can lead to job creation for implementing new technologies, which in turn feeds economic growth. For example, the solar industry already employs almost a quarter million people, despite being relatively new as a sector of the economy.
Of course, it’s also possible that the government could use carbon taxes in ways that don’t promote growth. They could, for example, push it into projects that have little or no impact on the economy.
Whether carbon taxes lead to growth or not is mainly a political matter, but any Congress that decides to pass a federal carbon tax will probably have ideas about how to use that money. I expect at least some of it to help spur the economy in some way, but there are so many competing interests that making specific predictions is the way to madness.
Some people refer to the strategy of reinvesting all taxes as a revenue-neutral approach. This means the tax does not grow the government, only reshuffles things so the tax rate focuses more on problem areas.
It’s worth noting that even with no direct gain, enough innovation in things like low carbon technologies or investment in things like natural gas technology can lead to more tax collected through existing laws. Very few things do not affect taxes, but the effect can be smaller or at a distance.
In other parts of the world, things like the EU Emissions Trading System allow companies to buy and sell excess capacity, which can spur innovation and provide additional funding for low-emission businesses. Cap and trade programs are essentially the same things.
Do other countries have carbon taxes?
National carbon taxes are relatively rare, though some local areas have also implemented them. They’re most common in northern Europe where nations like Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have had them on the books for several decades now. Australia also imposed a carbon tax back in 2012.
Several states have imposed carbon taxes, including California. For now, these represent a minority of the country, although some of the states with them have higher-than-average populations.
Do carbon taxes affect the creation of cleaner technologies?
Yes, though it’s not always clear how much. Developing new technologies is a long and often-difficult process, and the push for cleaner technologies faces added hurdles compared to many other areas.
Most people agree that electric vehicles are cleaner than internal combustion engine vehicles while in use. However, what does it take to manufacture their batteries, and where is their electricity coming from? If you’re burning coal to get electricity to run a car, you’re still emitting greenhouse gases, and the vehicle isn’t truly green or renewable.
New technologies don’t always work, either. Some time ago, car companies looked at creating hydrogen fuel cells to use instead of gas, and that fell flat. With current technology, electricity is several times more effective than hydrogen, despite hydrogen being among the cleanest options while a vehicle is in use.
Existing technology works for traveling short distances using electricity. The big questions here involve long-distance transportation, including trains and trucking. There are almost a million truckers in the US, collectively distributing billions of tons of freight each year.
While it’s easy to forget because of modern convenience, most stores would be out of food in only a few days if they stopped getting deliveries. This is one of the reasons transportation disruptions can be so immediately severe for people.
The point I’m trying to get to here is that technology is complicated.
Even if something works in a lab, that doesn’t mean it’s good enough for a real-world operating environment. The easiest ways to spur innovation are to directly fund it or to make the alternatives so expensive that companies will fund it themselves. Either way, it comes down to money.
If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you have to ensure any new technology is genuinely effective. Just imposing an emissions tax isn’t enough for that. Similarly, setting up an emissions trading system to let people swap obligations around will only get you so far. Carbon pricing mechanisms must be precise if they’re going to work, or your tax rate is irrelevant.
How do US taxes affect global emissions?
Taxes can create more emissions elsewhere, which many people call carbon leakage. This can involve companies moving production elsewhere, which has a major effect over time.
Reducing demand for fuel also lowers its price, which can make it more attractive in poorer or unregulated countries. That leads to more demand and consumption until the global price reaches a new equilibrium.
Well, I say that, but the truth is that the price is constantly changing and rarely reaches its stopping point before a new factor comes into play. I think an example will help illustrate this point for you.
Think of demand for products as a scale from 1 to 100 comprising all the people who will consider using that product. 100 represents the richest buyers, while 1 represents the poorest buyers.
The sales range is its supply. Let’s say that under normal circumstances, the top 30% have the easiest access to it, so that means everyone from 71 to 100 can access your emissions-producing fossil fuels. If you reduce demand at the top, where use is high, the price can drop down and bring in more buyers from the lower levels.
This is an oversimplification of the economy that doesn’t do the complexities justice, but it’s important to understand that internal carbon prices mean far more than the price at the pump. Things like tax credits per metric ton, a cap and trade program and various carbon pricing schemes all affect supply and demand.
It may seem strange that lower demand can create increased demand, but that’s only if you look at the surface level. In reality, it’s more likely that the demand was always there, but some people were previously priced out of using heat-trapping greenhouse gases like gasoline and natural gas as much as they wanted to.
Energy is global, so things like gasoline prices are also global.
How would a carbon tax affect energy prices?
Changes in energy prices usually reflect the magnitude of changes in an area.
For example, most of the western coast of the United States has already imposed efforts to reduce carbon in their electricity production. Even lower-income households won’t see as much of a change because, in many ways, they’ve already spent the money.
Areas with good access to renewable energy can mitigate the effects of energy prices by investing in more renewables. For example, many parts of the southwestern United States are consistently bright and an excellent locations for solar panels. This is an advantage cold northern areas don’t share.
Local factors have the biggest effect on overall pricing, so while everyone will see prices go up a little, the actual amount will vary. Our electricity generation systems are complex, just as the tax burden would be.
There are some ways to mitigate this. The electricity networks in the United States are huge, and it’s possible to offset high increases in one area by drawing on cost-lowering things in another. This can provide a better balance for customers instead of a painfully high energy tax in one area.
Some people are also looking into alternative options like carbon dividends. Carbon dividends occur when governments directly return tax money to people. Through this, they could shift the burden around, such as by taking the tax revenue from companies that use a lot of energy and giving it to lower-income households.
Strategies like these allow for emissions reduction without making an energy tax that punishes the people who can least afford a new tax burden. Lower-income households don’t have anywhere near as much coal consumption as places like factories, so focusing on existing emissions for payments can be a surprisingly effective strategy.
Could a carbon tax increase emissions?
If done poorly, yes.
For example, let’s say that Congress implements carbon pricing policies that target the energy sector, by which I specifically mean companies that produce electricity at power plants and sell it to other companies, households, or utility companies. Only companies in the energy sector would pay this carbon fee.
To get around this, you might see things like larger manufacturing plants putting generators on their property and using that electricity instead. The carbon fee wouldn’t apply to them because they’re not selling their electricity, just using it. With enough of this going on, we could see more emissions, rather than fewer.
This is one of the many reasons it’s important to be careful when you’re trying to address concerns about environmental regulations. If you overlook something important, then instead of helping mitigate climate change, you’ll spur it on. That defeats the entire purpose of a carbon tax on things like per capita emissions.
Do carbon taxes affect transportation policies?
They can, but like most areas, this is complicated.
The United States currently has a car-heavy culture, which affects things like our internal carbon price and how any carbon tax scheme might affect emissions. One of the most effective ways to implement emissions reductions is by switching over to public transportation and using renewable sources of energy in non-transportation areas.
There’s an old joke that every time people try to figure out a better transportation option for many areas, they just reinvent the train. It’s true that a high-speed, dedicated line that can transport large numbers of people at once tends to be the most efficient option possible.
Even a coal-powered train is many times more efficient than trying to move a similar quantity of goods by car or truck. The more trains and similar transportation options you use, the easier it is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Unfortunately, carbon tax revenue rarely has a direct correlation with public transportation, never mind industrial matters. Time is a big factor here. It can take years or even decades to lay down enough train tracks to cover enough area, and transportation tax revenues can get shuffled around a lot by legislatures.
Do state-level programs affect national carbon taxes and emissions?
Sometimes, yes.
States can take several different routes if there’s a national tax affecting carbon prices. Some states may have more aggressive or ambitious plans, so they’ll impose tighter restrictions to help reduce missions. Other states may decide that the federal guidelines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are enough, and avoid having any state policy for it.
In most situations, states only have the option to offer more than federal law allows, not less. For example, states can’t have a minimum wage lower than the federal one, but they can have a higher minimum wage.
State laws may inform federal lawmakers and help shape policies, but this is an area where federal law tends to triumph.
Are carbon taxes and tax breaks for renewable energy redundant?
They can be but usually aren’t. The main purpose of a carbon tax is some form of emissions reduction. Increasing the price of using carbon or decreasing the price of alternatives are both financial incentives, so on some level, they’re basically the same thing.
However, gaining carbon tax revenues gives the government money that it can spend on assorted policies to help deal with climate change. This is the main way that a carbon tax differs from subsidies, which usually involve direct payments to companies or places like low-income households.
Carbon taxes and tax breaks also tend to apply to different areas. Installing a solar panel has an effect on carbon prices, sure, but not as directly as making coal so expensive that companies race to find something else to use for generating power. A federal carbon tax can also reallocate revenue to areas that would have a hard time getting the money themselves.
In short, while these are similar principles, carbon tax revenue is ultimately more flexible and can lead to better results than tax breaks and subsidies alone.
Companies may benefit from different taxes or tax breaks in different areas.
For example, the European Union has different laws than the United States and a different approach to helping mitigate climate change. Many energy companies deal with the global economy at some level and may have to manage environmental regulations from multiple countries.
The global economy is exceedingly complex, but some governments will do things like say a company’s worldwide emissions have to be below a certain level to qualify for subsidies in a specific area. They may also allow for things like emissions trading, letting companies exchange value to meet broader criteria.
Tax revenue from carbon taxes will probably decrease as companies find new low-carbon technologies, so per metric ton, a carbon tax puts money into the government’s hands more temporarily than things like income taxes.
What are the alternatives to fossil fuels?
Solar and hydropower are some of the most popular alternatives for fossil fuels, and therefore something companies looking to reduce emissions may examine. Solar requires sunny areas to be effective, while hydroelectric power mainly uses gravity. It’s possible to install many hydroelectric dams along one river, though storing power can be trickier.
Modern wind turbines are also geographically limited, but a single turbine can power about 1500 homes per year. Nuclear power plants can produce incredible amounts of energy, and modern reactors are impressively safe, but issues like the Chernobyl disaster mean that nuclear technology often lacks public support.
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