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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

#231

Post by TacticalTable »

marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

It's like this on most issues on HN. Some of them benefit from a larger following (Animal cruelty, politics in your community), while others will simply be useless without government involvement to shut down the offenders. The only thing an individual is really accomplishing by avoiding flights in most cases is inconveniencing themselves and assuaging their conscious. Change needs to come from the top here, or nothing meaningful will get done.

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

#232

Post by lm28469 »

raverbashing wrote: post #201
skosch wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

This sounds like a better plan, too bad it won't happen This tax will just go to cover deficit or to pay the exceptional privileges of the government employees including French railways which go on strike more often than not. But surely, alienating the common people is the way to go...

> This tax will just go to cover deficit or to pay the exceptional privileges of the government employees

"just", well france is the definition of a welfare state so if it "just" helps cover the deficit mostly caused by our social security system it's already quite good.

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

#233

Post by skosch »

raverbashing wrote: post #201
skosch wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

This sounds like a better plan, too bad it won't happen This tax will just go to cover deficit or to pay the exceptional privileges of the government employees including French railways which go on strike more often than not. But surely, alienating the common people is the way to go...

I don't know about France, but this model is now reality in (at least part of) Canada, and the US has a bill before the House [0]. It's the only politically viable way of implementing carbon pricing.

[0] https://energyinnovationact.org

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

#234

Post by BeniBoy »

boudin wrote: post #139
samsonradu wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they’re expensive compared to flying the equivalent route/distance.

It depends, when you buy the tickets 3 month in advance, it can be really competitive. On short-notice trips, it's often too expensive indeed.

I hope they wouldn't use those agressive algorithm for dynamic pricing. This is a public service, have a static pricing! This turns the train into a luxury, at times almost three times as expensive as air travel.

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

#235

Post by WhompingWindows »

marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

There's a constant war of words here: are individuals responsible for cleaning up their footprint, or are corporations responsible for their dirty practices, or are governments responsible for putting policies to guide the economy?

The answer is: we need all three. We will not tackle climate change without strong change on the personal, corporate, and governmental levels.

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

#236

Post by hak8or »

marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

But it is us who are actually performing the "consumerism". It is us who buys tons of garbage and then throw it out. It is us who continue to buy gas guzzlers and wanting to live grossly inefficient lifestyles via living in suburbia, combined with us voting against mass transit.

It is also us who vote in people who do not care about climate change.

Ultimately, we are the ones who are willingly giving money to these companies. We simply don't seem to care on a grand scale because there continues to be high demand for inefficient goods. We are voting with our dollars.

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

#237

Post by tmalsburg2 »

rayiner wrote: post #223
dewey wrote: post #167

Finally. It's really frustrating to see how heavily subsidized airlines, plane fuel and airports are and how big of a tax breaks they get when they come to a city. At the same time people are shamed for buying salad in a plastic bag when the big lever is somewhere completely different. Had the same thought yesterday when I saw: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1148317244893597696

Aviation accounts for just 2% of global carbon emissions: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/1/11/1817711... . The plastics industry will burn through 14% of remaining carbon budget: https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/05/15/plastics-industry-clim...

Aviation hurts the climate in multiple ways of which CO2 emissions are just one. Vapor trails apparently contribute even more to anthropogenic climate change. Overall the contribution of aviation is estimated to be 5%.

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

#238

Post by kgwgk »

tluyben2 wrote: post #193
Freak_NL wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, expect more European countries to follow. The Dutch government is intent on doing this too; either on their own, or (preferably) on a European scale.

If it is only NL and France, it will just bankrupt KLM/AirFrance. It needs to be EU wide imho.

How does it being EU-wide help KLM/AirFrance? It's not like people is going to take flights out of London or Berlin instead of Paris or Amsterdam to avoid the tax.

Or maybe you mean that if it's only NL and France it will just bankrupt KLM/AirFrance while it is's EU-wide it will bankrupt them all.

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

#239

Post by eat_veggies »

slg wrote: post #230
marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.

tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation, not by hoping that individuals or corporations will discipline themselves

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

#240

Post by scrollaway »

slg wrote: post #230
marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.

This is an excellent analogy given that snowflakes don't exactly have any agency over whether they end up in an avalanche, and removing individual snowflakes from a mountain won't an avalanche stop.
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