The way I see it, the major barrier to countries implementing carbon taxes is the fear their economic competitors won’t do the same, therefore hindering their economic growth needlessly. A valid concern.
Why don’t some nations build an ‘opt in’ style Free Trade Agreement that allows any country to join as long as they prove they have implemented and enforced a carbon tax. Those countries then have high financial incentives to only trade within the ‘carbon tax block’ and any country outside is at a serious trade disadvantage.
I’ve (quickly) looked and have not found anything like this proposed (which is frankly crazy).
Would you support your country jumping into this FTA?
What are the unforeseen downsides or objections to a plan like this?
IMO climate is not going to be solved without a world government that has jurisdiction over all of Earth.
That is a political nightmare for other reasons, but it’s necessary to solve the incentive problems around this.
Without authoritarian enforcement, it’s just not going to happen because of the whole tragedy of the commons thing.
I’m not saying that should happen. I think that when considering a single planetary government with today’s climate, versus a multipolar planetary political system with the climate predicted by the IPCC if we don’t stop climate change, the single world government is worse for humanity.
Unless there are parts of human civilization that aren’t on Earth. A single government with jurisdiction over all humanity is a serious problem. By the time we have multiple worlds, single world governments won’t be as much of a nightmare.
Then we can solve climate change. But MAD will be disrupted. Which is its own problem.