Following up on an paper posted earlier this week on disproportionate carbon emissions based on income. This article, by one of the paper’s authors, proposes the possibility of imposing carbon tax on investment income as a more equitable means of influencing emissions.
Instead of putting the responsibility for cutting emissions on consumers, maybe policies should more directly tie that responsibility to corporate executives, board members, and investors who have the most knowledge and power over their industries. Based on our analysis of the consumption and income benefits produced by greenhouse gas emissions, I believe a shareholder-based carbon tax is worth exploring.
That’s not quite the point I was trying to make. A company has to be about as profitable as any other in order to justify its existence. You need an externality charge (carbon tax) to drive the price of using oil to the point where people (and other companies) look for alternatives and use them instead. It doesn’t matter whether you charge oil producers or users- the end effect is the same.