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France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

reuters.com

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Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#181

Post by skosch »

cameronbrown wrote: post #10

I don't really understand what the purpose of this tax is. There's no alternative to burning fuel by energy density on an airline, so why go after flights? What do they expect them to do? If you're taxing petrol cars you'd expect electric cars to become more economically viable. Either way I disagree with carbon taxes. They're regressive, and ignore the fact that regular people are being badly hurt by them whereas th…

Carbon taxes are the most efficient way to let the market work out technical solutions to the climate crisis. Period.

If you're worried about regressive taxation, check out the fee-and-dividend model, where all revenue is returned to households [0]. This means that for most "regular" people, the carbon tax is actually a tax credit – because most of the pollution is caused by the excessive consumption by rich households.

There is actually a bill before the House now that has a non-zero chance of passing.

[0] https://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#182

Post by mamon »

homonculus1 wrote: post #75
mamon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ecology is a new religion, except instead of Apocalypse they have Global Warming, and instead of sin they have "carbon footprint".

And instead of a bible, we have evidence ;)

No, all we have are scientific papers. And while in theory they should be considered evidence, the current financing system basically turns climate scientists into grant-seeking whores, and the results of research are determined not by facts, but by the needs of the sponsor. "Fighting" global warming is multibillion dollar business after all.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#183

Post by usrusr »

dfilppi wrote: post #45
caymanjim wrote: post #38

This is simply rent seeking. It won't reduce flights, it's too small to incentivize any fuel efficiency changes, it's passed on to the consumer so it won't alter airline behavior, and while the article claims the revenue will go towards financing trains, it doesn't state how that will be implemented. Are they going to reduce fees on trains accordingly? Are they going to improve train efficiency? Are they going to bui…

Airlines dont pollute. Their customers do.

Depends. I believe that regional feeder connections, where fuel cost is a lower fraction of total expenses than for longer distances would still have a lot of unexplored fuel economy improvement opportunities left. Even speed isn't terribly important there. Unfortunately, due to bigger picture economic incentives, feeder connections would likely be the last to suffer taxation/loss of subsidies.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#184

Post by malaxii »

sgregnt wrote: post #106
robjan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they don't get rich without the labour of the other 80%.

They get rich because they provide value for the people. The more value they prove the richer they get.

Hah, no. They get rich, because the more wealth you have, the easier it is to increase it. Why? Because this is how the rich and powerful have set up the rules of the game.

Personal wealth does not correlate with any sort of "value" you have personally created.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#185

Post by [deleted] »

vonmoltke wrote: post #147
keiferski wrote: post #48

I am actually surprised that short-distance flights aren't taxed more in Western Europe. The train infrastructure in France is world class and can get you from Paris (North-Central part of the country) to Marseille (Southeast), a distance of about 500 miles, in 3 hours. For Americans, this would be roughly equivalent to go from Boston to Washington D.C. (a trip that takes 7-10+ hours)

> For Americans, this would be roughly equivalent to go from Boston to Washington D.C. (a trip that takes 7-10+ hours) Half of which is stops... I would love Amtrak to start a service that is just BOS NYC WAS.

[deleted]

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#186

Post by skosch »

hedora wrote: post #144
bryanlarsen wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could destroy the money collected from the tax and it would still improve the environment: the tax will discourage people from flying and encourage people to use alternatives, which helps the environment.

As I write this, I imagine people are rushing to their phones to cancel their transatlantic business class tickets because of the 18 euro surcharge. I’ll be traveling via barge for the foreseeable future because of this tax.

All of this has been studied and modeled extensively. It's called elasticity of demand. The fact that professional trading firms are selling airline stock, pushing the price down, shows you that yes, this will indeed have an effect.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#187

Post by allemagne »

cameronbrown wrote: post #10

I don't really understand what the purpose of this tax is. There's no alternative to burning fuel by energy density on an airline, so why go after flights? What do they expect them to do? If you're taxing petrol cars you'd expect electric cars to become more economically viable. Either way I disagree with carbon taxes. They're regressive, and ignore the fact that regular people are being badly hurt by them whereas th…

A general carbon tax should absolutely be paired with a dividend of some kind to offset its effect on the poor.

However consumption patterns by everyone needs to change en masse, and a carbon tax across the board is a no-brainer to adjust individual incentives to achieve this.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#188

Post by usrusr »

mamon wrote: post #182
homonculus1 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And instead of a bible, we have evidence ;)

No, all we have are scientific papers. And while in theory they should be considered evidence, the current financing system basically turns climate scientists into grant-seeking whores, and the results of research are determined not by facts, but by the needs of the sponsor. "Fighting" global warming is multibillion dollar business after all.

Facilitating global warming is a multitrillion dollar business, so that argument is kind of weak.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#189

Post by skosch »

raverbashing wrote: post #179
Balero wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least for flights around Europe, taking the train. Flight in Europe are very cheap. It's actually cheaper to fly from London to Newcastle than it is to get the train, and it takes roughly the same time. For all flights the alternative is just not to go. Instead of flying to the Caribbean for a holiday, go some place closer and take the train, instead of flying for a business meeting, just call in. If it's worth th…

As much as I worry about global warming, this antagonizing view doesn't help "Paying for the damage" is this some kind of joke? What about all the other polluters? Shipping? Coal plants? Macron got the Yellow Jackets by hating on people that depend on cars to do their job, because wow, if you don't live in a place with public transport and already pay a substantial amount of tax in everything else and earn less than…

> "Paying for the damage" is this some kind of joke? What about all the other polluters? Shipping? Coal plants?

Right – tax them too, and distribute the revenue back to households. That way it's not a regressive tax, but a wealth transfer from heavy polluters to regular folks who are bearing the indirect costs of the climate crisis.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#190

Post by caymanjim »

0xffff2 wrote: post #163
perfunctory wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't see how this helps. Just curious, what would be your favorite solution(s) of the climate crisis?

Not GP, but any action that does not occur at a global level is nothing more than a feel-good measure. You're kidding yourself if you think that this, or even this multiplied across all of Europe would make a dent in climate change. Meanwhile, it allows people to feel like they're doing something, reducing the likelihood that we will actually see a globally coordinated effort to really change direction on the climate…

Exactly. It's like recycling. It lets people feel like they're doing something, raises prices, but doesn't actually achieve any of the objectives used to market it.

If you want to reduce pollution, regulate it, cap it, and provide penalties for breaching limits that far outweigh the profits for cheaters. Simply taxing everything never changes behavior.

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