Asklemmy

43812 readers

998 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Would you support your country joining an 'open invite' Free Trade Agreement with the only stipulation being the implementation of a Carbon Tax? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

35 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Our generation can't fix all of the problems with the world, as much as many of us would like to. What we can try to do is give future generations the opportunity to fix what we can't - but that requires us taking action on the climate today at the cost of our other ambitions.

I agree. The goal is fixing the planet. There are loads of problems that need fixing. Unfortunately, we need to start considering the cost of inaction. If adding some societal guarantee reduces participation in a carbon tax that is a cost the whole world has to pay in the future. If too many restrictions are added there may be no change from the status quo.

I am frustrated by the myriad of lofty goals that go nowhere. We needed action on those lofty goals yesterday. We are more desperate for it today and have to pay for that with compromises.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

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.