A good test for whether politicians are serious about battling climate change, or merely using the problem as an excuse to advance a grab-bag of progressive issues, is to examine what they would do with the revenues collected from a carbon tax.
If the answer involves anything other than offsetting cuts to other taxes, then I suspect the politician's motives are less than pure. Carbon taxes are not about raising revenue. They are about placing a price on emissions so companies and consumers have incentives to choose lower-emitting options. The goal is to put a price on an “externality” – the economic term for ill side effects that aren't included in the price of production.
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