The growing revolt against 'climate change' taxation

Washington Examiner:

The turmoil sparked by French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to boost gas taxes is just the latest example of an emerging political truism.

While economists hail them as the best, most effective way to limit greenhouse gas emissions, carbon taxes are proving a tough sell for politicians who have to work and win elections in the real world.

The climb down by Mr. Macron’s government — delaying for at least six months planned gas tax hikes in the face of the worst Paris street riots in 50 years — is just the latest retreat for green-oriented governments in North America, Asia and Europe. The long-term benefits of lower carbon emissions tend to get swamped in the polls by the immediate pain of higher costs at the gas station and on the home heating bills.

President Trump weighed in on Twitter on Tuesday evening, saying the Paris demonstrators and the Macron government have come around to his way of thinking on the dubious wisdom of higher fuel taxes as a way to fight climate change.

The global climate deal signed in Paris — and rejected last year by Mr. Trump — “is fatally flawed because it raises the price of energy for responsible countries while whitewashing some of the worst polluters …,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “American taxpayers — and American workers — shouldn’t pay to clean up others countries’ pollution.”

The debate presents a classic clash between theoretical elegance and political pragmatism.

Led by Paul Romer, who won the 2018 Nobel Economics Prize for his work on integrating climate change into macroeconomic analysis, top economists argue that the argument is straightforward: The quickest, most efficient way to reduce carbon production is to tax it and force the market to find cheaper, cleaner alternatives.

“Tax the usage of fuels that directly or indirectly release greenhouse gases,” said Mr. Romer, a former chief economist with the World Bank. “People will see that there’s a big profit to be made from figuring out ways to supply energy where they can do it without incurring the tax.

“The problem is not knowing what to do,” Mr. Romer recently told a Canadian radio station. “The problem is getting a consensus to act.”

Critics are everywhere, even in places as unexpected as leading environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, which has objected to carbon tax proposals that return some of the proceeds to taxpayers. It argues that the money should be earmarked for clean energy projects.

Politicians face the largest stumbling blocks in avoiding the fears of everyday citizens that new taxes will crush them, policymakers say. Higher gas and home heating taxes also tend to fall on rural and working-class voters who rely on cars more than their urban compatriots. That argument factored heavily in France’s “yellow vest” protests against Mr. Macron’s proposed diesel tax hike, which exploded into France’s largest riots in decades.
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The alternative energy developed to date is vastly inferior to fossil fuels.  It is less efficient and less dependable and gets worse in extreme weather.  Taxing fossil fuels does not make the alternative better or more competitive despite the wishes of the climate change crowd.  What the French revolt shows is that politicians can't tax their way to alternative energy acceptance.