STICHWORTE: • • • • •von

Klimaschutz oder Umverteilung?

Es geht um das Klima, es geht aber auch um einen neuen Weg, um die Bürger zu belasten und umzuverteilen. Selbst die FT argumentiert in diese Richtung und sieht in einer noch höheren Belastung nicht nur die Lösung für die Klimafrage, sondern ein Instrument zur größeren Umverteilung. Damit ist klar, in welche Richtung es geht.
  • “In a short amount of time, a number of proposals dreamed up by economists to achieve greater reductions in carbon emissions — and thereby limit the extent of climate change — has gone from radical to mainstream.” – bto: was zumindest im Falle von Deutschland mit der massiven medialen Begleitung zu tun hat.
  • “(…) a joint statement by France’s Council of Economic Analysis (CAE) and Germany’s Council of Economic Experts showed a consensus at the highest echelons of the two countries’ policy economists in calling for a uniform carbon price levied on all economic sectors in all EU countries. These are government-affiliated but independent groups in the EU’s two most important countries, and their imprimatur matters greatly for the credibility of innovative policy proposals.” – bto: kein Wort dazu, dass dies für die Nuklearnation Frankreich ein Leichtes ist.
  • “(…) both councils now explicitly endorse two rather radical ideas (…), and (…) they have set themselves the task of designing good economic policy in a way that makes it politically acceptable nationally and politically effective globally.” – bto: Und dabei ist es natürlich sehr populär, wenn man es mit einer Umverteilungsagenda verbindet.
  • “(…) any revenues from carbon taxes should be returned to the private sector rather than enter the government budget to be used for other purposes. The French CAE has developed a concrete and costed proposal for direct cash distribution of carbon tax revenue, in the form of regular ‘carbon cheques’ to households. Its preferred version, where the carbon tax varies with household income and between cities and the countryside, can make virtually below-median-income households better off (…).”
  • “The German council (…) has offered this as one of several ways to address the regressive social impact that a carbon tax would have on its own. But the German economists, too, show very clearly that a carbon-tax-and-cash-payment scheme can be designed so that almost all those in the bottom half of the income distribution can be made better off with higher carbon taxes.” – bto: Dabei verteilt nur Irland mehr um als Frankreich und Deutschland.
  • “The German report explicitly envisages a (…) a tax on the CO2 content of imported goods. The joint statement lists a number of alternative trade tools to use against countries with only weak regulation of carbon emissions, or to incentivise those trading partners with strong climate commitments to stick to them.” – bto: was von anderen – z. B. den USA – als Vorwand genutzt werden könnte, um mit protektionistischen Maßnahmen zu reagieren.
  • “In her pitch to the European Parliament on Tuesday, Ursula von der Leyen’s insistence that ‘emissions must have a price’ would have been music to economists’ ears. She vowed to expand the coverage of the current EU system of tradable emissions permits; she said she would introduce a carbon border tax on importsso that production would not simply move to countries with weaker climate change policies; and she promised a ‘just transition fund’ to support ‘people and regions’ most affected by climate change policy. (…) One thing is certain: there is no shortage of well-developed policies through which they can be carried out. The question now is only one of political will.” – bto: weil es die Möglichkeiten gibt, zugleich noch mehr staatliche Intervention und Umverteilung zu organisieren, hat es sehr gute Chancen. Vor allem, weil es doch „einer guten Sache dient“.

 → ft.com (Anmeldung erforderlich): “It has been a good week for climate change policy”, 18. Juli 2019