James5

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or to email alerts. Thanks for visiting!

India is worried about a potential EU carbon tax on imports. They say if bilateral talks fail they will take the dispute to the WTO under the “no less favourable treatment” provision. It seems the EU carbon import tax will only apply to certain “developed” countries, which seems a bit odd and provides a firmer foundation for a challenge since it discriminates between countries.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Some evidence that economics works. When the price of petrol hits a certain point, people stop driving, manufacturers start making fuel efficient cars, and the trains start filling up. The simplest, quickest and easiet way to kickstart green transport? Tax non-green transport. You can even use the revenue to help those that’ll get hit the worst by the change.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Ezra Klein bashes the whole ‘eat local’ movement in a recent post. It turns out that transport costs from overseas account for only about 4% of the total GHG emissions of food. So eating local is only a marginal improvement, especially compared to say reducing red meat consumption. I think often local food does taste better though, no need to grow it for transportation or pack it with preservatives. Also, this really depends on what food it is and how it is transported. Mangoes shipped from Mexico are probably better than air freighted snap peas from Zambia.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Mankiw has an article over at the New York Times advocating a cut in the corporate tax rate. I’m highly skeptical about this “trickle-down economics”, but I like his idea of funding it with a petrol tax.

Popularity: 4% [?]

David Zetland has a good post on the merits of a carbon tax versus cap and trade. While the free-marketers had been doing a good job on me convincing me that cap-and-trade was the solution, I’m thinking that Pigovian taxes might be the best bet after all.

Popularity: 2% [?]