Hacker News Reader

This is what a price on carbon and carbon taxes are intended to address.

As the price of use or production of carbon rises, it will spur investment and competition in alternative forms of energy.

Further, a tax credit for removing carbon from the atmosphere will help spur removal technologies and we can begin to make a dent in everything that's already in the atmosphere.

View on HN

We also need taxing of emissions to curb emissions of other greenhouse gases (mostly methane) that are not tied directly to the burning of fossil fuels. For example emissions from household animals, drained farmland and so on.

The problem with these kinds of taxation systems is that they are really difficult to enforce, because you need a way to measure the amount of greenhouse gas emitted by each individual business.

Taxation of emissions is another tool in the toolbox, but we also need to guarantee that the consumption of fossil fuels is decreasing at the same time. Taxation may help, but it provides no guarantee of that.

Once oil producers have to pay the carbon tax, the consumption will go down, because the price of oil will go up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com