The nice thing about a carbon tax is we can stop nitpicking over what qualifies as a significant contribution to the problem.

Sure, but I think the bone of contention is whether a carbon tax is a viable mechanism for funding UBI.

The reason why a carbon tax works well to efficiently reduce carbon emissions is pretty much the same reason it can't work well to transfer wealth.

EDIT: Another way to understand the relationship is that because consumption increases faster per additional income dollar as you move down the income scale[1], any actual wealth transfer is likely to result in greater carbon emissions.

[1] This paper has some graphs: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2...

The wealth transfer mechanism can be designed to account for that. For example, a negative income tax would work.

Another thing to consider, the tax is on the producers of the fossil fuels, not the consumers. And those producers are increasingly competing in markets with non-carbon alternatives. So it is unlikely that they can pass the full cost onto consumers, more likely the tax will be eating into their profits. And what does show up on the consumer side will likely show up as mild inflation. In an economy with an effective UBI, wages are more likely to track inflation as the labor market will have more negotiating power.

FWIW, I have no idea if a carbon tax alone is enough to fund UBI (or negative income tax). But it is certainly one source of revenue that I would fully support tapping into.

Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights.

Nitpicking: one transatlantic flight emits 2 tons of CO2 per passenger, a human emits 4 tons per year per capita on average.

> Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights.

Why can't airports be taxed based on the CO2 generated by planes landing at them? The airport can recover this from the airlines however it wants, including incentivizing lower polluting planes by charging lower landing fees.

As an absolute percentage, yeah, it's not that big. But considering how frequently most people fly vs drive, it's a decent chunk.

Regardless, thanks for the references. I didn't know actual figures for air travel, it's a bit less than I thought.