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Articles

Vol. 44 No. 3 (2024)

Incorporating Equitable Carbon Access into Carbon Taxes

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4067/s0718-090x2024005000114
Submitted
July 30, 2024
Published
2024-10-21

Abstract

As climate change mitigation measures, carbon taxes ought to assign the burdens associated with decarbonization equitably and should at least aim to avoid perpe­tuating wide inequities in carbon access. While several popular carbon taxation schemes incorporate “feebate” or other redistribute adjustments designed to offset the regressive impacts of rising energy costs, seeking to neutralize the burden-sha­ring inequity of such policies, they can also contribute to inequities in carbon ac­cess, which constitute a second kind of inequity that offsetting schemes may not neutralize. Attention to resource-sharing principles that capture this latter equi­ty objective suggests a comparison between downstream rationing schemes that allocate carbon access among persons and at the point of consumption, thereby instantiating resource-sharing equity, and the carbon pricing schemes that require extensive modifications in order to approximate such equity ideals. In this paper, I compare the two for purposes of focusing on this neglected second equity concern in the design of carbon pricing schemes like carbon taxes as well as on incorpora­ting other justice-related advantages of downstream rationing into such a scheme.

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