It would have been much simpler to do this at the beginning

The latest demand about climate change:

Green taxes should be added to clothes, gadgets and red meat as part of the Government’s net zero plan, a new report from its former “nudge unit” said.

More than 70 per cent of people backed extending carbon levies to include clothing and electronics in a survey by the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT).

Well, yes, obviously. If we assume that CO2-e emissions cause problems then all CO2-e emissions should be treated in the same manner. Because all CO2-e emissions are the same thing causing the same problem.

Of course, we we don’t assume that CO2-e is a problem then we’ve not a problem to solve.

We also have a long report on what to do about this, The Stern Review. Which tells us what to do if we do make that assumption that CO2-e is a problem that must be dealt with. We do not have “green taxes” - another impost on whatever the environmentalists wish to mither about this week. We have the one tax on CO2-e and only CO2-e from whatever source. We have “a” carbon tax, not green taxes.

Thus fumes from fertilisers, cow burps, fossil fuel emissions, emissions from making cement, gadgets or clothes are all treated in the same manner - because it’s the CO2-e that has been identified as the problem.

We’re even told how much this should be. Some $80 per tonne CO2-e. UK emissions - yes including imports - are of the order of 500 million tonnes a year. That means $40 billion of tax or, in real money, perhaps £30 billion. We already pay emissions taxes of that amount and more, fuel duty.

There is nothing at all in climate change which says government should be larger. Only that a Pigou Tax is the correct response to the emissions which cause the problem - for those who believe there is a problem of course.

Once we understand the science here - and this is the economic science about the problem on that assumption there is a problem - then public policy becomes very simple.

Reduce fuel taxes so that emissions from fossil fuels are correctly taxed, then increase emissions taxes elsewhere in the economy so that those other emissions are correctly taxed. For we are already all paying the correct amount it’s just badly distributed.

One of the grand truths about climate change is that according to that economic science concerning climate change we’re already solving it. We already suffer the correct taxation to deal with it that is. We just do it very badly at present and should do it better.

It really would have been very much simpler if everyone had understood what Stern was actually saying those 17 years back and based public policy on what he did actually say. But, you know, politics and governance.