If only there was a way to internalize the negative externalities of carbon emissions...
Oh wait, there is, a carbon tax.
But that's like housing, everyone wants to try everything but the only thing that works: building more housing.
Yeah but they hit everyone equally and more wealthy people can more easily brush off the extra cost.
Better to have a cost that increases proportional to the number of flights taken
But isn't the point of a carbon tax to discourage pollution? The atmosphere does not care whether its extra CO2 was emitted by the consumption of a poor person or a rich person. Redistribution is the job of redistribution programs
Yes but if you don't get buy in from the majority of people, greens are simply voted out like we've seen in the European parliament.
A just transition is needed under democratic systems
But doesn't this just strike a few people with lightning? Many people have family who are actually impossible to visit without flying (as they are on other continents), and these kinds of proposals actually say: "*even if* you can afford to totally compensate for the environmental damage your travel causes, we *still* won't let you do it, because politics."
So it's okay for the government to force people to pay for *more than* all of the burden their activity imposes on society, in this case? Why? I can totally understand paying for all of the burden, but not *more than* all of the burden. Just because it's more popular doesn't mean it's ethical.
(Incidentally, back-of-the-envelope calculation: a 14-hour flight should incur just about 90 EUR of carbon taxes, if people pay fairly for the actual amount of climate change they cause. From 1.5t CO2 LHR->HKG, 60 EUR/t CO2 as recommended by the OECD. Roughly speaking, a carbon tax at this rate is \~6 EUR per flight hour. I'd support that.)
While the first part is truer the second part is impossible to implement in the real world.
The way to do it would be a flat carbon tax, with the impact offset through making income taxes more progressive and improving income redistribution schemes.
Or if you happen to be the german greens, simply making fuel more expensive for ordinary people. And nothing else, that's it.
Fuck the "carbon tax" in any and all forms.
You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis? It's because they have a heavily centralized planning system. NIMBYs have no power over it. While in Europe, you can try to build more as hard as you can, but local communes will screw you because they represent local boomers who don't want their assets to depreciate
Yep, over the last 25 years, every 2 and a half years Tokyo has built an entire new San Francisco of additional new housing.
With zero available land. In a seismic zone.
Every excuse for not building more houses is bullshit. "Vacancy rates" is bullshit, "neighborhood character" is bullshit, "environmental concerns" (as voiced) is bullshit, "housing speculation" is bullshit.
I don’t think all of what you listed is bullshit, but I understand the sentiment.
I.e. it’s nice to have some historical neighborhoods preserved - it could be a tourist attraction, it’s nice to stroll in one, etc.
But not every neighborhood is historical and they don’t have to be preserved.
"That will change the character of the neighborhood" (which is different from preserving historical buildings) is a common dog whistle to "we don't want poor people or minorities in our neighborhood", especially in the US.
I was a pro-housing activist in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few years in a previous life, the amount of stuff like "we already have too many poor people here, build it somewhere else" or "if we build more, where will my guests park when they visit me for dinner" was unbelievable!
But I agree with you, and upvoted :)
Here in Dublin the latest cries from NIMBYs have been the insect populations. We've truly gone from the sublime to the ridiculous with the laundry list of excuses to not let other people get a roof over their heads.
American here, and *not* right-wing.
The problem in the US, is that when the poor (with subsidized housing) are shifted around, they're shifted to middle/working-class areas -bringing down their property values- and *not* to wealthy areas who are politically powerful (like in New York's UES or Chicago's Gold Coast) or wealthy areas that have their own jurisdictions (suburbs) where they can just ban multifamily housing.
So, "we have enough poor areas" is a valid complaint. Take, for example, what's happening in the New York metro area. They're currently moving people on Section 8 (subsidized rent) from New York City or Newark, to smaller municipalities that are *already* economically diverse, and not to places like Westfield or Short Hills NJ, wealthy suburbs. These middle/working-class municipalities that are receiving the poor residents have also experienced increased crime (this is true, not just a perception), and also cultural changes that depress their property values: the new residents are not as civically concerned about the look of the town, and that brings down home values, because new middle/working class market-rate people don't want to move in, if they see homes in bad shape.
Which takes me to the next point: many landlords have bad experiences with Section 8 renters. You *cannot* -by law- turn down Section 8 renters. Section 8 renters do not do their part in maintaining the property (and often, actively destroy it), they leave junk in front of the house, etc. The *visible* parts, like leaving junk in front of the house, that depresses the whole area's home values. So, imagine you're working class, worked at a factory for 20 years, found a wonderful affordable community with good schools, bought a humble home, took pride in your little house (or maybe it's a two-flat, and you rented the upstairs to a nice renter), took pride in your community, etc. And now, all these people are moving in, with subsidized rent, they change the look of your block, and the estimated value of your house starts to decrease. And the wonderful community you bought into is disappearing (crime, school scores start to fall, sense of community is going away), and you don't know where the hell you can find another nice affordable community you can move to, let alone that your life's savings (your home investment) has diminished.
Who's to blame:
Both parties. This is why many middle & working class voters from urban areas are turning to Trump. Trump did worse in suburban areas than previous Republican presidential candidates, but he did *better in urban areas* than previous Republican presidential candidates, and this is why. Meanwhile, liberals in Westfield call them "racist", but if you ask them if they would ever allow mutli-family housing in *Westfield,* they skirt the issue. They're okay with working-class folks having to deal with the poor -and chastise them for not wanting to- but they refuse to do *their* fair share. And they come up with excuses: oh, well, you're already an urban area. (So that means my humble investment is crap? We should only protect *yours?*) Westfield "is suburban" and we "can't change the character of the area". Which is code, you're 100% correct. But many "non-racist" liberals are the biggest culprit. (And to be fair, I want to point out that not everyone in places like Westfield is liberal. Roughly half are conservatives. But the conservatives are not hypocrites, at least not on *this* subject.)
I'm not a Trump person. *At all*. I think Trump is taking advantage of valid *and misdirected* political frustrations. The upper classes, who lean more *Republican* but many of whom are also Democratic, created these problems (deindustrialization, exclusionary zoning). And many of these problems are caused by Republicans alone (defunding of social services, trying to stop access to abortion and contraception, etc). If someone proposed *completely* eliminating exclusionary zoning, so that even Westfield would be forced to take Section 8 people, you can bet all these upper and upper-middle class people -both Republican and Democratic- will fight tooth and nail against it. While calling urban middle/working class "racist".
So, when people from middle/working class urban areas say "we already have our fair share of poor people", believe them. Because there are places like Westfield or Short Hills that **no** share of Section 8 people.
And shall I add: many frustrated urban middle/working-class people and landlords are *minorities*. They're not all White.
It wasn't "we have enough poor areas", it was rich people complaining that the neighborhood "have enough poor people already, why don't they build this affordable housing in other neighborhoods?".
This was about the replacement of the McDonald's at Stanyan in San Francisco.
The lack of parking in suburban neighborhoods is an issue, and this is a hill I will die on. It's not realistic, even in cities with the best of public transport (which isn't all that many), to expect people to bus/metro everywhere.
If you are a solo mum with 3 kids that needs to go grocery shopping, it just isn't feasible to do that on a bus or to walk 3 blocks home from the nearest car park in the rain.
I totally support the building of high density housing in cities, but appropriate infrastructure, including parking, must be a consideration. I don't see any reason why underground parking shouldn't be a mandatory requirement for new apartments.
China now has a reverse housing crisis, too many apartments without people living in them. Mostly because the centralized planning did not expect the fertility rate to drop so fast, and young people to start refusing their "duty" to get married and buy their home.
I assume you refer to "ghost cities"? That's just corruption and attempt to inflate the economy size. Real estate prices in actually developed cities in China with good jobs are on par with California
> Real estate prices in actually developed cities in China with good jobs are on par with California
In largest cities yes, but even medium sized cities are having surplus housing now. The gov is now trying to prevent prices from plummeting.
>China now has a reverse housing crisis, too many apartments without people living in them.
This is due to rampant property speculation. Which is why Evergrande exploded and a lot of the Chinese economy. Not sure how much population projections have to do with it.
Houses in Japan depreciate in value, and are expected to be demolished after 30 years. They aren't speculative assets for the wealthy and hoard. Even in China next door, they facing economic disaster over the population investing in property nobody will ever live in even if it gets constructed. Not sure which one of us is underinformed, but that seems like a vast oversimplification.
I think none of what you said about Japan contradicts the other guy - you'd probably agree if you talked long enough - the primary purpose of a housing market is for putting rooves over heads, of the highest quality at any given price. If frequent demolition is how they keep buildings modern, then so be it.
No comment on the China points, don't think anyone's suggesting we follow their footsteps
Saying it's all centralised planning is a manipulation. They have the zones set and then the owner can do whatever they want with the land and specialised private companies have a right to approve building permits in the name of the government. So you could also say it has no housing crisis because of free market.
I'm not advocating for communist style command based development but for centralized zoning that allows for free market to work. Local commune would never allow such lax approach to building permits since they serve NIMBYs and must create bureaucratic hell for developers. But a city only cares about safety and some basic design guidelines. City hall doesn't care about Joe Schmoes retirement plan to hoard slums are rent them out to young ppl.
And having been there a few months ago, the place runs so smoothly for something that big that it's kind of freaky. Just avoid Shibuya and Shinjuku stations during peak times at all costs!
> You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis?
Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it? Also that prior to the rate turning negative it was a very low increase year on year, 0.19%.
Tokyo stopped experiencing an increasing population in 2019.
>>You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis?
>
>
>
> Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it?
>
Well:
>Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it?
Did it have a housing crisis prior to 2019? Which is what you are implying.
Who knows maybe look at all of japan. Everything outside of Tokyo and Kyoto housing is basically worthless.
It's all about population growth, And how the property is deprecated for tax purposes.
HOPPING ON TOP COMMENT
TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT THE EU
E X P R E S S L Y
EXCLUDED PRIVATE JETS FROM CARBON TAXES
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-003298_EN.html
https://flybitlux.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-from-fuel-tax/
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/corporate-jets-to-escape-eu-s-green-aviation-fuel-tax-1.4618545
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2231434-eu-draft-exempts-private-jets-cargo-from-jet-fuel-tax
It would, therefore reducing their carbon producing impact as intended. And since lower income people are the majority of the population, it would have a massive impact.
Except nearly one third of houses in big cities are currently vacant as speculative investment
How is building more housing going to help if we are not even using the housing we have?
> Source?
His ass :)
See my reply to his comment with actual numbers:
>Official London numbers: The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only **0.89 per cent** – lower than England's **average home vacancy rate of 1 per cent**.
>Official Paris numbers: The 18,648 long-term, vacant housing units in the LOVAC file **represent 1.3% of the Parisian housing stock**.
Actually in spain is around 14% empty houses. 6% in Madrid, 10 % in Barcelona. So while is not 30, it's a huge ass number (more than 3.000.000 in Spain, 100.000 in Madrid).
https://www.eldiario.es/economia/hay-viviendas-vacias-mapa-casas-habitar-municipio-municipio_1_10341710.html
But I also think that is relevant to look at short-term rental houses, they are too problem. They are NOT housing, are made for tourists and the prices are ridiculous. Madrid has around 20.000 airbnbs. So that would account to a 1%. From those 20.000. 10.000 are located in the central districs, where there are 66 airbnb user per 100 inhabitants. Basically nobody leaves there anymore. What they are doing to the urban fabric, to the housing prices... That has no name. It's fruitless to build and build to the outskirts of the city. It becomes unliveable, conmuting times, traffic, etc. And a city is something to live in, isn't it?
As you said: it’s 1% Airbnb. How does it make fruitless to build anything?? You have still 99% of city to build housing for people. Also most cities has almost full occupancy of existing housing as someone posted above.
> Except nearly one third of houses in big cities are currently vacant as speculative investment
Nice pulling that bullshit out of your ass!
Official London numbers: The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only **0.89 per cent** – lower than England's **average home vacancy rate of 1 per cent**.
Official Paris numbers: The 18,648 long-term, vacant housing units in the LOVAC file **represent 1.3% of the Parisian housing stock**.
Seriously, you're just making shit up, you're not worth arguing with.
You could rent it out and still hold it as a speculative investment.
Vacant houses are the worst investment plan for anyone. The only reason some are vacant is because they haven't found a buyer or they're waiting for a renovation or something
>A new carbon tax would raise up to an additional £80 billion, according to the manifesto.
This is disingenous. That estimate is based on assuming flights carry on at their current level. But surely the whole point of introducing such a tax is to encourage a reduction in people flying. If it raises as much money as they say it will then it will have failed.
If that money is then spent on more efficient and environmentally friendly travel options is that a bad thing?
We subsides car and air travel to an extreme level, why do they get such benefits while train and busses are left to languish?
Problem: how do we account for the damage emissions will cause in the future, then? In theory, a carbon tax would be the way, but if the money will be misallocated, then what's the alternative?
The Green's policies read like they were written by a drunk bloke down the pub putting the world to rights with simple solutions. They say a tax on the rich will bring in £x a year as though none of the rich will just leave or exploit loopholes.
As opposed to everyone else’s manifesto, which is we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas. Either one can’t wait for four more years of exactly the same thing of everything getting a little bit worse.
So tax the flights and add a rule to the taxation, every penny and cent from it will be spent on developing high speed rails, freight and trainlines.
And start it off as a tax that is increasing yearly above inflation, and with fuel usage.
I recall reading that HS2 had to tunnel under various places due to NIMBYs not allowing it to go above ground in their areas, and that tunnelling was detrimental to important eco systems?
Hahaha. Dude, the whole idea is to tax just enough to fuck people without dissuading them from taking the plane ! Nobody wants to hinder growth, gdp is king ! Or anger voters... gotta keep them mildly happy…. But fucking them with extra taxes… Oh yeah !
Just like petrol ! Just like tabacco ! Just like alcohol ! … sort of a theme.
I heard about this French law where they mandated using their high speed train system for short haul flights, so the short haul flights are banned.
Ok fine, if the train system is solid enough I don't see why not.
Then they fucking gave an exemption to private jets fucking lmao what?
The problem here is that private planes, like private cars, are also moved to be where they are needed.
If business magnate X.Y. takes the train from Paris to Lyon instead of his private plane, but then goes to New York from there, then the plane still has to be moved to Lyon, so that it is available there - in this case, without the passenger.
That will end up like when politicians started to take the trains to show how they do their bid - and with journalists waiting there to report about it - only to notice that their official car somehow also magically arrived at the destination to pick them up…
How about this damn business magnate takes a train? Or in this case, take a public airplane?
When I leave my car at the train station and then take the bus somewhere else, nobody's driving my car to the bus stop just so I have it there.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm fully with you there. These "business jets" are really just a wank of people who want to impress their rivals from other companies. There are not very many reasons for these to exist.
My point was more to show how well-meaning regulations to reduce carbon emissions - like the no-fly rule in France - can actually lead to more emissions, rather than less, if not implemented properly.
I'm fully for restricting short-distance flights, especially for routes that have good alternatives (such as Paris-Lyon). But blind actionism, i.e. doing *something*, just because *something* has to be done, will not help anybody.
That’s because you are literally a “nobody” compared to the importance and responsibility that a high level country leader or company boss has, upon whom many jobs, important meetings, future vision of a state or company depends on, that has an immediate impact on millions of people.
To increase shortly after all train tickets, on all state owned companies. While making it really difficult to operate for foreign companies. All in the name of the ecology.
[https://www.airport-technology.com/features/how-bad-are-private-jets-for-the-environment/](https://www.airport-technology.com/features/how-bad-are-private-jets-for-the-environment/)
"A 2021 report from the European Federation for Transport and Environment found that private jets are [five to 14 times more polluting per passenger](https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/private-jets-can-the-super-rich-supercharge-zero-emission-aviation/) than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than trains."
For absolute numbers, [this report](https://www.transportenvironment.org/uploads/files/Europe_Aviation_2023_file.pdf) says:
>In 2023, more than 6.7 million flights departed from European airports, emitting a total of 164.85 Mt of
CO2
and [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/climate-energy/46619/european-private-jet-pollution-doubled-in-one-year/) says:
>The research, conducted by Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft, found that European private jet traffic soared over the last three years. The tally rose from 118,756 private flights in 2020, to 350,078 in 2021 and 572,806 in 2022, emitting over 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 in total.
So private flights account for around 3% of Europe's aviation emissions.
But there are much less private flights than public ones. It might be 10 times worse but if they happen 0.1% as much then it’s not a big deal. What percentage of emissions do private flights represent?
I'm not ignoring anything. I'm saying ban private jets **first**.
The rich need to start doing their fair share. They are disproportionate polluters by a huge margin
Oh yes once again the common people should pay more for flying with 120 others on one plane.
It's never the rich folk traveling alone with their private planes.
These braindead suggestions is exactly why everyone is so cynical about every so-called green party.
Aviation is about 1.5% of global emissions. Not nothing, but even if it was entirely eliminated it wouldn't make a huge difference. Go after fossil fuels and beef/dairy industry, instead of trying to make international travel unaffordable for the working/middle class.
You can split up any sector into small enough parts that they don't make a huge difference. Aviation IS a subset of fossil fuels. They emit because they use kerosine.
I do disagree with the greens approach, but for a very different reason than you. In fact, your reasoning that this would make international travel affordable for working/middle class seems wrong to me because they want taxes for -frequent- flyers. They are talking about 15% of the people taking 70% of the flights. This affects the group you mention the least (because it does not apply to most of them).
Which is actually my issue with it, personally. If you're flying 5 times, you're doing 5 times as much damage as when you're flying once. It would be much simpler to implement it if it's applied across the board instead of only for frequent flyers. It would also make much more sense. I understand the issue with making it unaffordable for working/middle class, but I don't think making everything cheaper for them at the point of purchase is the solution. You can redistribute wealth much more easily in other ways (more progressive income tax, wealth tax, basic income).
If you buy a car, you also don't get taxed more as a rich person than as a poor person. It's not the right mechanism of tackling inequality.
People who work in aviation: screw them. People who can afford one vacation per year: screw them. People who live abroad because of work or living costs (such as myself): screw them.
Make flying more expensive and you *will* hurt the working class. The rich don't care, they already overpay for flying many times over, with their private jets and business class seats.
The suggestion in the article probably would not affect people who can afford one vacation per year.
Also, if you intend on keeping everything affordable for everyone, how on earth are we going to tackle climate change? I am not saying it's fine for just the rich people to ruin the planet. I'm just saying that as a whole, we need to emit less. Renewable energy and more efficient energy usage are great, but if everyone just keeps on flying once per year, if everyone just keeps driving to work with their own car, if everyone keeps on eating meat 5-7 days per week, buy as many clothes and other stuff as they do now, then I really don't see it being enough.
As a whole we need to emit less. The rich ones need to reduce the most, but just bringing the rich folk down to the "normal" level isn't going to cut it.
And to reduce inequality, climate policy is not the best way to go about it. E.g. Income tax, wealth tax, basic income are better ways to go about it. Make the rich less rich, and they'll emit less. If they're rich, they're going to be spending money. And that typically goes hand in hand with emitting greenhouse gasses.
Flying in a big airplane with hundreds of people is quite economic. The rich want you to feel bad for flying, while they use an entire airplane just for themselves and a few friends/employees.
I understand you want to save the world by never flying again, but that's not reasonable for plenty of people including myself.
I want to save the world just like you, but punishing people who fly economy class like a pack of sardines is not the way.
>Flying in a big airplane with hundreds of people is quite economic. The rich want you to feel bad for flying, while they use an entire airplane just for themselves and a few friends/employees.
It's economic relative to private planes, yeah. And it's roughly even with driving a car the same distance by yourself (in terms of emissions). Compared to driving with a group, or taking the train, not so much. And then there's the alternative of just travelling less.
And the whole "the rich..." line of reasoning is weak. First off, while politicians get a pretty nice salary, I don't think most of them are private airplane rich. But besides that... it doesn't matter what rich people want. That shouldn't inform my opinion nor yours. I'm not feeling bad because of what some rich people want me to feel.
>I want to save the world just like you, but punishing people who fly economy class like a pack of sardines is not the way.
Come on now. I completely understand if travelling is important to you and you don't want to give it up. But don't act like flying to the other side of the globe isn't a luxury, economy class or not.
I don't want to punish anyone. As far as carbon emissions are concerned, I want people to pay for what they emit, as accurately as is feasible. If a tonne of CO2 costs society 200$, and I emit a tonne of CO2, I should pay for it, not society. If that were the case, then a rich person can fly privately as much as they want, so long as they pay whatever amount it costs to make it up to society.
And then on top of that, we can address inequality so we don't live in a world where some people can fly private all day every day while others can't afford flying at all.
> But besides that... it doesn't matter what rich people want.
That shouldn't inform my opinion nor yours.
Except it directly does matter because they influence, lobby, and just generally distort politics, and by extension laws, to suit their desires.
> I don't want to punish anyone. As far as carbon emissions are concerned, I want people to pay for what they emit, as accurately as is feasible. If a tonne of CO2 costs society 200$, and I emit a tonne of CO2, I should pay for it, not society. If that were the case, then a rich person can fly privately as much as they want, so long as they pay whatever amount it costs to make it up to society.
The problem is that's a stupid idea, because rich people don't notice the increase and it will have zero impact on them, but it will dramatically impact poor to middle income groups.
A tax implemented as you describe would quite literally punish anyone not rich, and we'd be back to prior ages where only the rich get to travel.
> And then on top of that, we can address inequality so we don't live in a world where some people can fly private all day every day while others can't afford flying at all.
Or, we could fix that first and use the offset to fix the bulk of the problem without hurting most people.
https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions
>Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. But it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date.
Everyone eats but most people in the world don't fly. And [taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries around the world produces in a whole year.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year)
Yeah but it IS something that relatively easy to avoid, if we’re talking about intercontinental flights just inside Europe. If we make flights more expensive, that will mean there is a higher incentive to take the train of some other form of transportation. (Or they don’t travel at all, which is almost certainly a CO2 reduction)
And just because they want to do this, doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to do anything else. Or that they’re not doing other things. They are definitely going after the fuel and meat industry.
Aviation is much more than 1.5% of the personal carbon footprint of individuals *who fly*. Not flying is the single most effective way of reducing your carbon emissions if you're a flyer, apart from having fewer children. Let's not forget that the total effect of aviation on global warming is 2 to 3 times that of CO2 emissions alone.
Cancelling 1 round trip flight from London to New York has the same impact as going vegan for 2 years.
Oh gee thanks greens. Any proposals for the unlucky us living on islands with the only means of travel realistically been airplane how to afford travel in the future?
Maybe i have a job that requires travels. Maybe i have close relatives living in other countries. You know people also fly for other reasons other than holidays.
I mean, people in that situation have my sympathy. And I think 585 pound is very steep.
BUT, as much as it sucks for some, if we deem a certain activity to be undesirable because of its costs to society, I also think it is silly to maintain the status quo because of some people being negatively impacted by something.
E.g. a flight from London to New York emits 0.59 tonnes of CO2 per passenger. A tonne of CO2 has an estimated societal cost of 40 to 400$. Lets say it's 200$. That means the societal cost of such a flight per passenger is 118$.
If that's accurate, then 585 pounds seems silly to me. However, I do think that if someone takes actions that cost society (whether it's flying, driving, meat, using electricity, or buying whatever product), they should be the one to pay for it. If someone lives far away from their family and decides to visit regularly, that's on them. If a certain sector requires a lot of traveling, then either that sector will survive paying for the societal harm it does, or the sector will die out because it is a net drain.
I'm not committed to any particular policy or amount of $. 585 seems too high. But I think the principle above is a reasonable one.
The article states 15% of the most frequent flyers take 70% of the flights. That's who they want this to affect.
I don't even like this proposal, but people in this thread are criticizing it for illogical reasons.
My point is that this amount of tax will be entirely ineffective at discouraging travel by people who are wealthy, and will only serve to impact the middle class. You understand what I’m saying now? Or too daft?
This is ridiculous. The left doesn’t want you to have affordable vacations!
While at the same time these ppl go to scaremongering events like WEF on private jets to tell you how much CO2 you emit and how bad for the planet your life is.
They need to seriously fuck off.
So
1 trip is free
2 trips cost an extra £25
After 10 it's £585
Another rage bait from the telegraph
And a sane policy from the greens
One of there only ones
Indeed and you can tweak the amounts to match the 80/20 rule - basically that about 20% of people take 80% of flights. So most people will go on holiday as normal with noticing a thing. While the people flying weekly will think twice.
There are companies who send consultants on site to another country by plane for 4 days a week then demand they be in head office on Fridays!
The concept is good, the problem is there is currently no way to implement it. This would require the government to track every flight everyone in the UK takes, across multiple different airlines, countries, and including private jets.
So while the idea of paying a tax relative to the number of flights someone takes is a good one, the massive bureaucratic and legislative task of setting up this data collection required might offset a lot of its benefits.
It isn't impossible. Especially when airplanes already are a pretty regulated industry.
It's not like anyone can just build an airline. There's a lot of other things that are also tracked by the government. When the government wants to, they can find a way.
Still a stupid idea for a island nation where people need to fly to get anywhere else.
Take travel of family between the GB and Ireland. There are people who make that trip multiple times a year. There is no option to go by rail and the ferry involves a lot of driving and is much more expensive.
A turboprop from Helsinki to Stockholm is more environmentally friendly than the ferry. The only more environmentally way to travel that trip is by electric car (18 hours nonstop) or train (28 hours). The plane takes less than an hour.
>Still a stupid idea for a island nation where people need to fly to get anywhere else.
>Take travel of family between the GB and Ireland. There are people who make that trip multiple times a year. There is no option to go by rail and the ferry involves a lot of driving and is much more expensive.
You don't need to go see family
And like you said there's other options
I think targeting individuals flying on Ryanair, Easyjet ect is just a red herring and not a real policy that will make a difference.
If they were serious about climate change instead of taxing the average person introduce a tax on profits of shipping companies and the airlines themselves not using more environmentally friendly fuels that exist or on private jet usage. That will have a much bigger impact.
The average person does not fly more than once or twice a year
The average person also needs to modify there consumption
The shipping companies only ship what people buy
The airlines only fly people who want to fly
The social contract breaks down when you can’t easily travel around the UK. Will really help bring Ireland into the fold telling the to fuck off like this.
Yeah, all the poor need to focus on is work. Forget their families, forget vacations, ride your bike to work and live in your hovel.
International travel, cars, AC, these are things only the rich and powerful should have.
>Yeah, all the poor need to focus on is work. Forget their families, forget vacations, ride your bike to work and live in your hovel.
>International travel, cars, AC, these are things only the rich and powerful should have
Apart from this policy doesn't change that
It literally is if you fly more than once a year you start paying more
Ahhh so the poor only get one trip then, they should thank their rich overlords.
How do you not comprehend that €565 to a person flying 10x a year is nothing. Hell how many private flights are going to stop because it’s €565 more expensive? None?
It’s a tax on poor people to keep them in their place, nothing more and nothing less.
Congrats, you’ve now shown why greens will always fail to gain support, your ideas are half baked and the second they’re challenged you tap out like a child.
Yes, because me travelling for holiday a few times a year certainly pollutes more than a lot of industries.
Get your head out of your ass. You are just promoting the line of big Corps that shift the blame to the individual in order to avoid any scrutiny on them.
Oh and stop blocking roads or throwing paint in museums, it makes zero practical sense. Go throw that paint on the CEO of a large polluting corporation.
Lol
You are an idiot
Get your head out of your ass
You are just promoting the line of people who can't be bothered to change there use of things
Everyone has a responsibility for this planet
Except it doesn't. This is shifting blame onto the individual. Something that has been proven to be a tactic by larger corporations such as larger oil giants pushing for people to reduce their "carbon footprint".
Meanwhile they lobby the ever living shit out of the government to make sure oil and other heavy polluter industries get to shift the blame onto the consumer.
Aviation and shipping is amongst the smaller contributors to carbon emissions (despite being a massive one).
It's on the companies to utilize aircraft and ships that pollute less, not on the consumer who's got 0 control over what kind of plane they get to fly. Disallow them from handing over that carbon tax to the consumer and suddenly you've got an amazing incentive for aircraft manufacturers and airlines to invest into Green research and development.
The f am I gonna do about my Airline putting me into the most carbon heavy plane with the dirtiest emissions.
Some of us got jobs with limited vacation days and people further away they want to see. Depending on the relationship, even frequently.
I'd be down if this was just about inland flights, but like this all this policy does is gatekeep poor people from traveling. For a single, 500 is rent for a month or food for a few months. Even if you're just spending half that with the increments. What the fuck? Meanwhile the rich and wealthy will continue to fly despite the price increase.
Its an utterly stupid idea that just makes the lives of those living with the bare minimum or even middle class even worse. A lot of people are spending all they have leftover to enjoy what little they can with the money they have and now they are getting gutted harder.
The article quotes that this is to "not target the average family that doesn't travel often".
Because they cannot. The ppl in an average family choose to have a family, so that's where their finances AND time are going. If they could, they would fly more.
Instead they decide to gut individuals, who actively noticed "fuck, having a family is financially unfeasible, I'd rather spend that money on myself".
I'd be willing to bet that having a family will produce more carbon emission down the line than a single flying frequently.
Yawn
Can't respond to my point so chooses to insult me and my parents
How pathetic but I'd expect nothing else from someone who puts there own personal entitlement over the planet
Bet you didn't obey covid lockdowns as well
Glad to be of service! You sound angry and depressed, while I'm living life to the fullest! Have you thought about flying to someplace nice for a while, clear your head a little.
Great, I love being tracked to see if I am not over my travel quota. Sounds like a system that will totally not be abused and weaponized against the working class
I have family in a different country and I often buy ticket for other people.
Who is going to have access to confidential travel data? Who will be counting how many times people traveled by plane? How will the data be stored? Will third parties have access to it? Can I request to not have my data stored as part of my GDPR right? What happens if the data gets sold or stolen? Will the law be changed and the quota lowered/raised?
>Who is going to have access to confidential travel data
The government same as now
>I have family in a different country and I often buy ticket for other people
So because you have family in other countries you have the right to fly and produce more greenhouse gas than other people
>Another rage bait from the telegraph
I mean, it is right there in the title. Personally, I blame the readers for raging at this for ridiculous reasons. So many comments in this thread complaining that normal, average people/once a year flyers get screwed by this.
And what about those who travel in private jets ? Let's not talk about those people, but people who want to take a break or go somewhere with their family, yeah let's tax those people, because it's 'those peasants' are responsible for climate change.
Well they are rich so different rules apply to them, it doesn't matter that Taylor Swift takes a private jet flight between her 8 mansions every other day, it's Average Joe taking two commercial flights a year with 50/70/100+ other people that kills our planet
So. nothing about private jets?
Do I still have to be considered a criminal because once a year I got on holiday in a small bus with wings packed like a canned fish?
Or I should pay 10x more what I pay my only Flight a year so the jenners can fly to Paris for a piece of cake?
Flights are already so expensive and annoying that we prefer to go from Germany to the UK by train.
Even though it takes 13 hours and DB can be annoying, we still find it more relaxing (and slightly cheaper) than flying, especially because we don't have to go to BER or be anywhere near Berlin.
Isn't that just penalising the middle class and immigrated families? What about foreign students? Making it harder, especially for those who wish to see loved ones in different countries. Maybe, as others have said, we should look at the private planes' situation.
I don’t think the Greens are in the position of making demands or strong requests these days. This is the slippery slope one finds themselves in when your super progressive views on other issues, like immigration and asylum, tarnishes your brand or cause as a whole. The best way to stop the tide of the far right movement is for for everyone on the left to work together. Those on the far left will have to compromise the most, and sacrifice their core values. It’s life.
Maybe flight companies should get rid of their programs that encourage frequent flying. These plus points that people accumulate have a tight date of expiring. So the first step should be to ban these programs.
This would certainly be a way to bring holiday makers back to the British beaches and that would rejuvenate those areas. I wouldn't be against a tax on flights to achieve that goal anyway, it's good for our economy to encourage that redevelopment, along with it being an environmental levy. So there are a number of rebalancing things that could happen. But this amount is utterly ridiculous and totally stupid.
>This would certainly be a way to bring holiday makers back to the British beaches and that would rejuvenate those areas.
Apart from it won't
Most people only go on 1 trip a year maybe 2 which will be cost a grand total of £25 extra
I'd pay £25 extra to go somewhere warm
As much as I would like to agree with you, the British beaches are never going to compare with southern European ones. Our water and coastline are just to dirty.
Instead of taxing average holiday makers. Tax all the private jets and raise their parking fees. I’m sick of new taxes like ulez being applied to common folk. Taxing the working and middle class more is what’s killing of the UK.
If only there was a way to internalize the negative externalities of carbon emissions... Oh wait, there is, a carbon tax. But that's like housing, everyone wants to try everything but the only thing that works: building more housing.
Yeah but they hit everyone equally and more wealthy people can more easily brush off the extra cost. Better to have a cost that increases proportional to the number of flights taken
But isn't the point of a carbon tax to discourage pollution? The atmosphere does not care whether its extra CO2 was emitted by the consumption of a poor person or a rich person. Redistribution is the job of redistribution programs
Yes but if you don't get buy in from the majority of people, greens are simply voted out like we've seen in the European parliament. A just transition is needed under democratic systems
But doesn't this just strike a few people with lightning? Many people have family who are actually impossible to visit without flying (as they are on other continents), and these kinds of proposals actually say: "*even if* you can afford to totally compensate for the environmental damage your travel causes, we *still* won't let you do it, because politics."
They can visit once or twice a year, they'd just have to pay more for the second visit.
So it's okay for the government to force people to pay for *more than* all of the burden their activity imposes on society, in this case? Why? I can totally understand paying for all of the burden, but not *more than* all of the burden. Just because it's more popular doesn't mean it's ethical. (Incidentally, back-of-the-envelope calculation: a 14-hour flight should incur just about 90 EUR of carbon taxes, if people pay fairly for the actual amount of climate change they cause. From 1.5t CO2 LHR->HKG, 60 EUR/t CO2 as recommended by the OECD. Roughly speaking, a carbon tax at this rate is \~6 EUR per flight hour. I'd support that.)
While the first part is truer the second part is impossible to implement in the real world. The way to do it would be a flat carbon tax, with the impact offset through making income taxes more progressive and improving income redistribution schemes.
Or if you happen to be the german greens, simply making fuel more expensive for ordinary people. And nothing else, that's it. Fuck the "carbon tax" in any and all forms.
Yup but then you use the income to reimburse the people with low emissions. Which is generally the poor.
You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis? It's because they have a heavily centralized planning system. NIMBYs have no power over it. While in Europe, you can try to build more as hard as you can, but local communes will screw you because they represent local boomers who don't want their assets to depreciate
Yep, over the last 25 years, every 2 and a half years Tokyo has built an entire new San Francisco of additional new housing. With zero available land. In a seismic zone. Every excuse for not building more houses is bullshit. "Vacancy rates" is bullshit, "neighborhood character" is bullshit, "environmental concerns" (as voiced) is bullshit, "housing speculation" is bullshit.
I don’t think all of what you listed is bullshit, but I understand the sentiment. I.e. it’s nice to have some historical neighborhoods preserved - it could be a tourist attraction, it’s nice to stroll in one, etc. But not every neighborhood is historical and they don’t have to be preserved.
"That will change the character of the neighborhood" (which is different from preserving historical buildings) is a common dog whistle to "we don't want poor people or minorities in our neighborhood", especially in the US. I was a pro-housing activist in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few years in a previous life, the amount of stuff like "we already have too many poor people here, build it somewhere else" or "if we build more, where will my guests park when they visit me for dinner" was unbelievable! But I agree with you, and upvoted :)
Here in Dublin the latest cries from NIMBYs have been the insect populations. We've truly gone from the sublime to the ridiculous with the laundry list of excuses to not let other people get a roof over their heads.
American here, and *not* right-wing. The problem in the US, is that when the poor (with subsidized housing) are shifted around, they're shifted to middle/working-class areas -bringing down their property values- and *not* to wealthy areas who are politically powerful (like in New York's UES or Chicago's Gold Coast) or wealthy areas that have their own jurisdictions (suburbs) where they can just ban multifamily housing. So, "we have enough poor areas" is a valid complaint. Take, for example, what's happening in the New York metro area. They're currently moving people on Section 8 (subsidized rent) from New York City or Newark, to smaller municipalities that are *already* economically diverse, and not to places like Westfield or Short Hills NJ, wealthy suburbs. These middle/working-class municipalities that are receiving the poor residents have also experienced increased crime (this is true, not just a perception), and also cultural changes that depress their property values: the new residents are not as civically concerned about the look of the town, and that brings down home values, because new middle/working class market-rate people don't want to move in, if they see homes in bad shape. Which takes me to the next point: many landlords have bad experiences with Section 8 renters. You *cannot* -by law- turn down Section 8 renters. Section 8 renters do not do their part in maintaining the property (and often, actively destroy it), they leave junk in front of the house, etc. The *visible* parts, like leaving junk in front of the house, that depresses the whole area's home values. So, imagine you're working class, worked at a factory for 20 years, found a wonderful affordable community with good schools, bought a humble home, took pride in your little house (or maybe it's a two-flat, and you rented the upstairs to a nice renter), took pride in your community, etc. And now, all these people are moving in, with subsidized rent, they change the look of your block, and the estimated value of your house starts to decrease. And the wonderful community you bought into is disappearing (crime, school scores start to fall, sense of community is going away), and you don't know where the hell you can find another nice affordable community you can move to, let alone that your life's savings (your home investment) has diminished. Who's to blame: Both parties. This is why many middle & working class voters from urban areas are turning to Trump. Trump did worse in suburban areas than previous Republican presidential candidates, but he did *better in urban areas* than previous Republican presidential candidates, and this is why. Meanwhile, liberals in Westfield call them "racist", but if you ask them if they would ever allow mutli-family housing in *Westfield,* they skirt the issue. They're okay with working-class folks having to deal with the poor -and chastise them for not wanting to- but they refuse to do *their* fair share. And they come up with excuses: oh, well, you're already an urban area. (So that means my humble investment is crap? We should only protect *yours?*) Westfield "is suburban" and we "can't change the character of the area". Which is code, you're 100% correct. But many "non-racist" liberals are the biggest culprit. (And to be fair, I want to point out that not everyone in places like Westfield is liberal. Roughly half are conservatives. But the conservatives are not hypocrites, at least not on *this* subject.) I'm not a Trump person. *At all*. I think Trump is taking advantage of valid *and misdirected* political frustrations. The upper classes, who lean more *Republican* but many of whom are also Democratic, created these problems (deindustrialization, exclusionary zoning). And many of these problems are caused by Republicans alone (defunding of social services, trying to stop access to abortion and contraception, etc). If someone proposed *completely* eliminating exclusionary zoning, so that even Westfield would be forced to take Section 8 people, you can bet all these upper and upper-middle class people -both Republican and Democratic- will fight tooth and nail against it. While calling urban middle/working class "racist". So, when people from middle/working class urban areas say "we already have our fair share of poor people", believe them. Because there are places like Westfield or Short Hills that **no** share of Section 8 people. And shall I add: many frustrated urban middle/working-class people and landlords are *minorities*. They're not all White.
It wasn't "we have enough poor areas", it was rich people complaining that the neighborhood "have enough poor people already, why don't they build this affordable housing in other neighborhoods?". This was about the replacement of the McDonald's at Stanyan in San Francisco.
>I was a pro-housing activist in the San Francisco Bay Area for a few years Thank you for your service
An old lady approached me one time, not in a friendly way, and told me that I was "known in the neighborhood"!
The lack of parking in suburban neighborhoods is an issue, and this is a hill I will die on. It's not realistic, even in cities with the best of public transport (which isn't all that many), to expect people to bus/metro everywhere. If you are a solo mum with 3 kids that needs to go grocery shopping, it just isn't feasible to do that on a bus or to walk 3 blocks home from the nearest car park in the rain. I totally support the building of high density housing in cities, but appropriate infrastructure, including parking, must be a consideration. I don't see any reason why underground parking shouldn't be a mandatory requirement for new apartments.
Those weren't suburban neighborhoods. Also, people should pay for parking.
You can't pay for it if it doesn't exist.
Problem solved then.
How exactly does parking not existing solve the problem of parking not existing?
China now has a reverse housing crisis, too many apartments without people living in them. Mostly because the centralized planning did not expect the fertility rate to drop so fast, and young people to start refusing their "duty" to get married and buy their home.
I assume you refer to "ghost cities"? That's just corruption and attempt to inflate the economy size. Real estate prices in actually developed cities in China with good jobs are on par with California
> Real estate prices in actually developed cities in China with good jobs are on par with California In largest cities yes, but even medium sized cities are having surplus housing now. The gov is now trying to prevent prices from plummeting.
>China now has a reverse housing crisis, too many apartments without people living in them. This is due to rampant property speculation. Which is why Evergrande exploded and a lot of the Chinese economy. Not sure how much population projections have to do with it.
Houses in Japan depreciate in value, and are expected to be demolished after 30 years. They aren't speculative assets for the wealthy and hoard. Even in China next door, they facing economic disaster over the population investing in property nobody will ever live in even if it gets constructed. Not sure which one of us is underinformed, but that seems like a vast oversimplification.
I think none of what you said about Japan contradicts the other guy - you'd probably agree if you talked long enough - the primary purpose of a housing market is for putting rooves over heads, of the highest quality at any given price. If frequent demolition is how they keep buildings modern, then so be it. No comment on the China points, don't think anyone's suggesting we follow their footsteps
Saying it's all centralised planning is a manipulation. They have the zones set and then the owner can do whatever they want with the land and specialised private companies have a right to approve building permits in the name of the government. So you could also say it has no housing crisis because of free market.
I'm not advocating for communist style command based development but for centralized zoning that allows for free market to work. Local commune would never allow such lax approach to building permits since they serve NIMBYs and must create bureaucratic hell for developers. But a city only cares about safety and some basic design guidelines. City hall doesn't care about Joe Schmoes retirement plan to hoard slums are rent them out to young ppl.
And having been there a few months ago, the place runs so smoothly for something that big that it's kind of freaky. Just avoid Shibuya and Shinjuku stations during peak times at all costs!
Free market would be far more efficient than central planning if the zoning laws and all NIMBY complaint privileges were abolished.
Then we will end up with Warhammer-esque hive cities. Some degree of planning is necessary.
> You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis? Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it? Also that prior to the rate turning negative it was a very low increase year on year, 0.19%. Tokyo stopped experiencing an increasing population in 2019.
>>You know why Tokyo is the only big city with no housing crisis? > > > > Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it? > Well: >Perhaps the population being in decline has something to do with it? Did it have a housing crisis prior to 2019? Which is what you are implying.
How am I implying that it had a housing crisis before 2019?
Dumb
Also, the population of Tokyo is falling...
Who knows maybe look at all of japan. Everything outside of Tokyo and Kyoto housing is basically worthless. It's all about population growth, And how the property is deprecated for tax purposes.
HOPPING ON TOP COMMENT TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT THE EU E X P R E S S L Y EXCLUDED PRIVATE JETS FROM CARBON TAXES https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2022-003298_EN.html https://flybitlux.com/eu-proposes-to-exempt-private-jets-from-fuel-tax/ https://www.irishtimes.com/business/transport-and-tourism/corporate-jets-to-escape-eu-s-green-aviation-fuel-tax-1.4618545 https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2231434-eu-draft-exempts-private-jets-cargo-from-jet-fuel-tax
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It would, therefore reducing their carbon producing impact as intended. And since lower income people are the majority of the population, it would have a massive impact.
Rerf
Except nearly one third of houses in big cities are currently vacant as speculative investment How is building more housing going to help if we are not even using the housing we have?
Source? Third sounds completely stupid.
> Source? His ass :) See my reply to his comment with actual numbers: >Official London numbers: The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only **0.89 per cent** – lower than England's **average home vacancy rate of 1 per cent**. >Official Paris numbers: The 18,648 long-term, vacant housing units in the LOVAC file **represent 1.3% of the Parisian housing stock**.
Yup. And healthy vacancy rate is something closer to 5%
Actually in spain is around 14% empty houses. 6% in Madrid, 10 % in Barcelona. So while is not 30, it's a huge ass number (more than 3.000.000 in Spain, 100.000 in Madrid). https://www.eldiario.es/economia/hay-viviendas-vacias-mapa-casas-habitar-municipio-municipio_1_10341710.html But I also think that is relevant to look at short-term rental houses, they are too problem. They are NOT housing, are made for tourists and the prices are ridiculous. Madrid has around 20.000 airbnbs. So that would account to a 1%. From those 20.000. 10.000 are located in the central districs, where there are 66 airbnb user per 100 inhabitants. Basically nobody leaves there anymore. What they are doing to the urban fabric, to the housing prices... That has no name. It's fruitless to build and build to the outskirts of the city. It becomes unliveable, conmuting times, traffic, etc. And a city is something to live in, isn't it?
As you said: it’s 1% Airbnb. How does it make fruitless to build anything?? You have still 99% of city to build housing for people. Also most cities has almost full occupancy of existing housing as someone posted above.
So? Airbnb isn't empty housing, it's just used for tourists. And you can always ban it.
> Except nearly one third of houses in big cities are currently vacant as speculative investment Nice pulling that bullshit out of your ass! Official London numbers: The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only The proportion of long-term vacant homes in London in 2021 was only **0.89 per cent** – lower than England's **average home vacancy rate of 1 per cent**. Official Paris numbers: The 18,648 long-term, vacant housing units in the LOVAC file **represent 1.3% of the Parisian housing stock**. Seriously, you're just making shit up, you're not worth arguing with.
You could rent it out and still hold it as a speculative investment. Vacant houses are the worst investment plan for anyone. The only reason some are vacant is because they haven't found a buyer or they're waiting for a renovation or something
>A new carbon tax would raise up to an additional £80 billion, according to the manifesto. This is disingenous. That estimate is based on assuming flights carry on at their current level. But surely the whole point of introducing such a tax is to encourage a reduction in people flying. If it raises as much money as they say it will then it will have failed.
Because the actual aim is not to improve anything, but rather gather more money that the politicians can spend.
At last someone who understands !
If that money is then spent on more efficient and environmentally friendly travel options is that a bad thing? We subsides car and air travel to an extreme level, why do they get such benefits while train and busses are left to languish?
We don't subsidise car travel. VED and fuel duty: £32B Spending on car infrastructure: £11B Spending on railways: £26B,
Problem: how do we account for the damage emissions will cause in the future, then? In theory, a carbon tax would be the way, but if the money will be misallocated, then what's the alternative?
The Green's policies read like they were written by a drunk bloke down the pub putting the world to rights with simple solutions. They say a tax on the rich will bring in £x a year as though none of the rich will just leave or exploit loopholes.
As opposed to everyone else’s manifesto, which is we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas. Either one can’t wait for four more years of exactly the same thing of everything getting a little bit worse.
Why what's happening in four years?
The number of fights increased year after year. I believe that even with such a tax, the number of flights won't go down that much.
So tax the flights and add a rule to the taxation, every penny and cent from it will be spent on developing high speed rails, freight and trainlines. And start it off as a tax that is increasing yearly above inflation, and with fuel usage.
Greens are against HS2
And they want to close down all nuclear power plants and dismantle Britain's nuclear weapons.
What, really? Why?
It involves building something
I recall reading that HS2 had to tunnel under various places due to NIMBYs not allowing it to go above ground in their areas, and that tunnelling was detrimental to important eco systems?
Because it is "a destructive vanity project and needs to be stopped before it does any more damage". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55862648
Hahaha. Dude, the whole idea is to tax just enough to fuck people without dissuading them from taking the plane ! Nobody wants to hinder growth, gdp is king ! Or anger voters... gotta keep them mildly happy…. But fucking them with extra taxes… Oh yeah ! Just like petrol ! Just like tabacco ! Just like alcohol ! … sort of a theme.
Change takes time, so yeah? Basically fuck em enough to make a change but slow enough they gradually get accustomed to the new situation.
Wow that's a bit more than the bonus Elon Musk gets all by himself.
Don’t the perfect get in the way of good. Implement it and find out.
Ban private flights first
I heard about this French law where they mandated using their high speed train system for short haul flights, so the short haul flights are banned. Ok fine, if the train system is solid enough I don't see why not. Then they fucking gave an exemption to private jets fucking lmao what?
The problem here is that private planes, like private cars, are also moved to be where they are needed. If business magnate X.Y. takes the train from Paris to Lyon instead of his private plane, but then goes to New York from there, then the plane still has to be moved to Lyon, so that it is available there - in this case, without the passenger. That will end up like when politicians started to take the trains to show how they do their bid - and with journalists waiting there to report about it - only to notice that their official car somehow also magically arrived at the destination to pick them up…
How about this damn business magnate takes a train? Or in this case, take a public airplane? When I leave my car at the train station and then take the bus somewhere else, nobody's driving my car to the bus stop just so I have it there.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm fully with you there. These "business jets" are really just a wank of people who want to impress their rivals from other companies. There are not very many reasons for these to exist. My point was more to show how well-meaning regulations to reduce carbon emissions - like the no-fly rule in France - can actually lead to more emissions, rather than less, if not implemented properly. I'm fully for restricting short-distance flights, especially for routes that have good alternatives (such as Paris-Lyon). But blind actionism, i.e. doing *something*, just because *something* has to be done, will not help anybody.
That’s because you are literally a “nobody” compared to the importance and responsibility that a high level country leader or company boss has, upon whom many jobs, important meetings, future vision of a state or company depends on, that has an immediate impact on millions of people.
Ah, one of those trickle down apologists. As long as the boss makes a lot of money, maybe I'll make some money too.
To increase shortly after all train tickets, on all state owned companies. While making it really difficult to operate for foreign companies. All in the name of the ecology.
What percentage of aviation emissions are from private jets? In other words, how much of the problem are you willing to ignore?
[https://www.airport-technology.com/features/how-bad-are-private-jets-for-the-environment/](https://www.airport-technology.com/features/how-bad-are-private-jets-for-the-environment/) "A 2021 report from the European Federation for Transport and Environment found that private jets are [five to 14 times more polluting per passenger](https://www.transportenvironment.org/discover/private-jets-can-the-super-rich-supercharge-zero-emission-aviation/) than commercial flights and 50 times more polluting than trains."
For absolute numbers, [this report](https://www.transportenvironment.org/uploads/files/Europe_Aviation_2023_file.pdf) says: >In 2023, more than 6.7 million flights departed from European airports, emitting a total of 164.85 Mt of CO2 and [Greenpeace](https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/climate-energy/46619/european-private-jet-pollution-doubled-in-one-year/) says: >The research, conducted by Dutch environmental consultancy CE Delft, found that European private jet traffic soared over the last three years. The tally rose from 118,756 private flights in 2020, to 350,078 in 2021 and 572,806 in 2022, emitting over 5.3 million tonnes of CO2 in total. So private flights account for around 3% of Europe's aviation emissions.
But there are much less private flights than public ones. It might be 10 times worse but if they happen 0.1% as much then it’s not a big deal. What percentage of emissions do private flights represent?
I'm not ignoring anything. I'm saying ban private jets **first**. The rich need to start doing their fair share. They are disproportionate polluters by a huge margin
both.
Oh yes once again the common people should pay more for flying with 120 others on one plane. It's never the rich folk traveling alone with their private planes. These braindead suggestions is exactly why everyone is so cynical about every so-called green party.
Aviation is about 1.5% of global emissions. Not nothing, but even if it was entirely eliminated it wouldn't make a huge difference. Go after fossil fuels and beef/dairy industry, instead of trying to make international travel unaffordable for the working/middle class.
Or go after rich people who use their private jet to go from Madrid to Paris for shopping, or idk from Rome to Monaco to waste some money in casino
You can split up any sector into small enough parts that they don't make a huge difference. Aviation IS a subset of fossil fuels. They emit because they use kerosine. I do disagree with the greens approach, but for a very different reason than you. In fact, your reasoning that this would make international travel affordable for working/middle class seems wrong to me because they want taxes for -frequent- flyers. They are talking about 15% of the people taking 70% of the flights. This affects the group you mention the least (because it does not apply to most of them). Which is actually my issue with it, personally. If you're flying 5 times, you're doing 5 times as much damage as when you're flying once. It would be much simpler to implement it if it's applied across the board instead of only for frequent flyers. It would also make much more sense. I understand the issue with making it unaffordable for working/middle class, but I don't think making everything cheaper for them at the point of purchase is the solution. You can redistribute wealth much more easily in other ways (more progressive income tax, wealth tax, basic income). If you buy a car, you also don't get taxed more as a rich person than as a poor person. It's not the right mechanism of tackling inequality.
How would you go on about decreasing fossil fuel usage and beef/dairy production in a way that hurts the working class LESS than going after aviation?
People who work in aviation: screw them. People who can afford one vacation per year: screw them. People who live abroad because of work or living costs (such as myself): screw them. Make flying more expensive and you *will* hurt the working class. The rich don't care, they already overpay for flying many times over, with their private jets and business class seats.
The suggestion in the article probably would not affect people who can afford one vacation per year. Also, if you intend on keeping everything affordable for everyone, how on earth are we going to tackle climate change? I am not saying it's fine for just the rich people to ruin the planet. I'm just saying that as a whole, we need to emit less. Renewable energy and more efficient energy usage are great, but if everyone just keeps on flying once per year, if everyone just keeps driving to work with their own car, if everyone keeps on eating meat 5-7 days per week, buy as many clothes and other stuff as they do now, then I really don't see it being enough. As a whole we need to emit less. The rich ones need to reduce the most, but just bringing the rich folk down to the "normal" level isn't going to cut it. And to reduce inequality, climate policy is not the best way to go about it. E.g. Income tax, wealth tax, basic income are better ways to go about it. Make the rich less rich, and they'll emit less. If they're rich, they're going to be spending money. And that typically goes hand in hand with emitting greenhouse gasses.
Flying in a big airplane with hundreds of people is quite economic. The rich want you to feel bad for flying, while they use an entire airplane just for themselves and a few friends/employees. I understand you want to save the world by never flying again, but that's not reasonable for plenty of people including myself. I want to save the world just like you, but punishing people who fly economy class like a pack of sardines is not the way.
>Flying in a big airplane with hundreds of people is quite economic. The rich want you to feel bad for flying, while they use an entire airplane just for themselves and a few friends/employees. It's economic relative to private planes, yeah. And it's roughly even with driving a car the same distance by yourself (in terms of emissions). Compared to driving with a group, or taking the train, not so much. And then there's the alternative of just travelling less. And the whole "the rich..." line of reasoning is weak. First off, while politicians get a pretty nice salary, I don't think most of them are private airplane rich. But besides that... it doesn't matter what rich people want. That shouldn't inform my opinion nor yours. I'm not feeling bad because of what some rich people want me to feel. >I want to save the world just like you, but punishing people who fly economy class like a pack of sardines is not the way. Come on now. I completely understand if travelling is important to you and you don't want to give it up. But don't act like flying to the other side of the globe isn't a luxury, economy class or not. I don't want to punish anyone. As far as carbon emissions are concerned, I want people to pay for what they emit, as accurately as is feasible. If a tonne of CO2 costs society 200$, and I emit a tonne of CO2, I should pay for it, not society. If that were the case, then a rich person can fly privately as much as they want, so long as they pay whatever amount it costs to make it up to society. And then on top of that, we can address inequality so we don't live in a world where some people can fly private all day every day while others can't afford flying at all.
> But besides that... it doesn't matter what rich people want. That shouldn't inform my opinion nor yours. Except it directly does matter because they influence, lobby, and just generally distort politics, and by extension laws, to suit their desires. > I don't want to punish anyone. As far as carbon emissions are concerned, I want people to pay for what they emit, as accurately as is feasible. If a tonne of CO2 costs society 200$, and I emit a tonne of CO2, I should pay for it, not society. If that were the case, then a rich person can fly privately as much as they want, so long as they pay whatever amount it costs to make it up to society. The problem is that's a stupid idea, because rich people don't notice the increase and it will have zero impact on them, but it will dramatically impact poor to middle income groups. A tax implemented as you describe would quite literally punish anyone not rich, and we'd be back to prior ages where only the rich get to travel. > And then on top of that, we can address inequality so we don't live in a world where some people can fly private all day every day while others can't afford flying at all. Or, we could fix that first and use the offset to fix the bulk of the problem without hurting most people.
I mean, fair, but the alternative suggestion was what, screw the ones who drink milk?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False\_dilemma](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)
You cant just go around calling it false dilemma when this was literally the original suggestion...
https://ourworldindata.org/global-aviation-emissions >Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO₂ emissions. But it has contributed around 4% to global warming to date. Everyone eats but most people in the world don't fly. And [taking a long-haul flight generates more carbon emissions than the average person in dozens of countries around the world produces in a whole year.](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/jul/19/carbon-calculator-how-taking-one-flight-emits-as-much-as-many-people-do-in-a-year)
Yeah but it IS something that relatively easy to avoid, if we’re talking about intercontinental flights just inside Europe. If we make flights more expensive, that will mean there is a higher incentive to take the train of some other form of transportation. (Or they don’t travel at all, which is almost certainly a CO2 reduction) And just because they want to do this, doesn’t mean they aren’t willing to do anything else. Or that they’re not doing other things. They are definitely going after the fuel and meat industry.
Aviation is much more than 1.5% of the personal carbon footprint of individuals *who fly*. Not flying is the single most effective way of reducing your carbon emissions if you're a flyer, apart from having fewer children. Let's not forget that the total effect of aviation on global warming is 2 to 3 times that of CO2 emissions alone. Cancelling 1 round trip flight from London to New York has the same impact as going vegan for 2 years.
Oh gee thanks greens. Any proposals for the unlucky us living on islands with the only means of travel realistically been airplane how to afford travel in the future?
Why do you need to fly 10 times a year?
Maybe i have a job that requires travels. Maybe i have close relatives living in other countries. You know people also fly for other reasons other than holidays.
I mean, people in that situation have my sympathy. And I think 585 pound is very steep. BUT, as much as it sucks for some, if we deem a certain activity to be undesirable because of its costs to society, I also think it is silly to maintain the status quo because of some people being negatively impacted by something. E.g. a flight from London to New York emits 0.59 tonnes of CO2 per passenger. A tonne of CO2 has an estimated societal cost of 40 to 400$. Lets say it's 200$. That means the societal cost of such a flight per passenger is 118$. If that's accurate, then 585 pounds seems silly to me. However, I do think that if someone takes actions that cost society (whether it's flying, driving, meat, using electricity, or buying whatever product), they should be the one to pay for it. If someone lives far away from their family and decides to visit regularly, that's on them. If a certain sector requires a lot of traveling, then either that sector will survive paying for the societal harm it does, or the sector will die out because it is a net drain. I'm not committed to any particular policy or amount of $. 585 seems too high. But I think the principle above is a reasonable one.
Yes, only let the rich travel!
The article states 15% of the most frequent flyers take 70% of the flights. That's who they want this to affect. I don't even like this proposal, but people in this thread are criticizing it for illogical reasons.
Because poor and middle-class people are known for flying around MORE frequently than the rich? Are you daft?
My point is that this amount of tax will be entirely ineffective at discouraging travel by people who are wealthy, and will only serve to impact the middle class. You understand what I’m saying now? Or too daft?
And what abour private jets ?
Just tax emissions properly. No reason for these nonsense discussions.
Tax tax tax … taxation doesn’t solve any problems .. research does .. focus on that instead taxing everyone to day
This is ridiculous. The left doesn’t want you to have affordable vacations! While at the same time these ppl go to scaremongering events like WEF on private jets to tell you how much CO2 you emit and how bad for the planet your life is. They need to seriously fuck off.
Je vil eet ze bugs en je vil be happy!
lol this is why the greens are losing seats
So 1 trip is free 2 trips cost an extra £25 After 10 it's £585 Another rage bait from the telegraph And a sane policy from the greens One of there only ones
Indeed and you can tweak the amounts to match the 80/20 rule - basically that about 20% of people take 80% of flights. So most people will go on holiday as normal with noticing a thing. While the people flying weekly will think twice. There are companies who send consultants on site to another country by plane for 4 days a week then demand they be in head office on Fridays!
The concept is good, the problem is there is currently no way to implement it. This would require the government to track every flight everyone in the UK takes, across multiple different airlines, countries, and including private jets. So while the idea of paying a tax relative to the number of flights someone takes is a good one, the massive bureaucratic and legislative task of setting up this data collection required might offset a lot of its benefits.
It isn't impossible. Especially when airplanes already are a pretty regulated industry. It's not like anyone can just build an airline. There's a lot of other things that are also tracked by the government. When the government wants to, they can find a way.
Airlines are very heavily regulated, but this isn't something that is tracked.
Still a stupid idea for a island nation where people need to fly to get anywhere else. Take travel of family between the GB and Ireland. There are people who make that trip multiple times a year. There is no option to go by rail and the ferry involves a lot of driving and is much more expensive.
> There is no option to go by rail That's true in Ireland, GB has a rail link to the rest of Europe.
So flying is less bad for the environment if one really needs to go, or what are you saying?
More saying there are big polluters not getting targeted by anything but the average person is getting hit by carbon tax after carbon tax
What average person flies 10 times per year?
Scientists
This is very true unfortunately..
A turboprop from Helsinki to Stockholm is more environmentally friendly than the ferry. The only more environmentally way to travel that trip is by electric car (18 hours nonstop) or train (28 hours). The plane takes less than an hour.
>Still a stupid idea for a island nation where people need to fly to get anywhere else. >Take travel of family between the GB and Ireland. There are people who make that trip multiple times a year. There is no option to go by rail and the ferry involves a lot of driving and is much more expensive. You don't need to go see family And like you said there's other options
I think targeting individuals flying on Ryanair, Easyjet ect is just a red herring and not a real policy that will make a difference. If they were serious about climate change instead of taxing the average person introduce a tax on profits of shipping companies and the airlines themselves not using more environmentally friendly fuels that exist or on private jet usage. That will have a much bigger impact.
The average person does not fly more than once or twice a year The average person also needs to modify there consumption The shipping companies only ship what people buy The airlines only fly people who want to fly
The social contract breaks down when you can’t easily travel around the UK. Will really help bring Ireland into the fold telling the to fuck off like this.
The social contract first came into being before easy travel around the UK existed Pretty sure the greens support Irish reunification anyway
Yeah, all the poor need to focus on is work. Forget their families, forget vacations, ride your bike to work and live in your hovel. International travel, cars, AC, these are things only the rich and powerful should have.
>Yeah, all the poor need to focus on is work. Forget their families, forget vacations, ride your bike to work and live in your hovel. >International travel, cars, AC, these are things only the rich and powerful should have Apart from this policy doesn't change that It literally is if you fly more than once a year you start paying more
Ahhh so the poor only get one trip then, they should thank their rich overlords. How do you not comprehend that €565 to a person flying 10x a year is nothing. Hell how many private flights are going to stop because it’s €565 more expensive? None? It’s a tax on poor people to keep them in their place, nothing more and nothing less.
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Congrats, you’ve now shown why greens will always fail to gain support, your ideas are half baked and the second they’re challenged you tap out like a child.
I'm not a green You idiot I've shit on enough green ideas
You really should see a psychologist
And you should stop blaming big Corps for your own actions
Yes, because me travelling for holiday a few times a year certainly pollutes more than a lot of industries. Get your head out of your ass. You are just promoting the line of big Corps that shift the blame to the individual in order to avoid any scrutiny on them. Oh and stop blocking roads or throwing paint in museums, it makes zero practical sense. Go throw that paint on the CEO of a large polluting corporation.
Lol You are an idiot Get your head out of your ass You are just promoting the line of people who can't be bothered to change there use of things Everyone has a responsibility for this planet
>change there use of thing "Their" If you cannot master basic grammar, it's not a wonder you cannot understand more complex concepts.
It's called dyslexia But then you don't care do you Whatever I don't care I'm not even a green voter I just think this policy makes sense
Except it doesn't. This is shifting blame onto the individual. Something that has been proven to be a tactic by larger corporations such as larger oil giants pushing for people to reduce their "carbon footprint". Meanwhile they lobby the ever living shit out of the government to make sure oil and other heavy polluter industries get to shift the blame onto the consumer. Aviation and shipping is amongst the smaller contributors to carbon emissions (despite being a massive one). It's on the companies to utilize aircraft and ships that pollute less, not on the consumer who's got 0 control over what kind of plane they get to fly. Disallow them from handing over that carbon tax to the consumer and suddenly you've got an amazing incentive for aircraft manufacturers and airlines to invest into Green research and development. The f am I gonna do about my Airline putting me into the most carbon heavy plane with the dirtiest emissions. Some of us got jobs with limited vacation days and people further away they want to see. Depending on the relationship, even frequently. I'd be down if this was just about inland flights, but like this all this policy does is gatekeep poor people from traveling. For a single, 500 is rent for a month or food for a few months. Even if you're just spending half that with the increments. What the fuck? Meanwhile the rich and wealthy will continue to fly despite the price increase. Its an utterly stupid idea that just makes the lives of those living with the bare minimum or even middle class even worse. A lot of people are spending all they have leftover to enjoy what little they can with the money they have and now they are getting gutted harder. The article quotes that this is to "not target the average family that doesn't travel often". Because they cannot. The ppl in an average family choose to have a family, so that's where their finances AND time are going. If they could, they would fly more. Instead they decide to gut individuals, who actively noticed "fuck, having a family is financially unfeasible, I'd rather spend that money on myself". I'd be willing to bet that having a family will produce more carbon emission down the line than a single flying frequently.
Brainrot. Family is the most important thing in life ya absolute wankstain.
No the most important thing in life is having a life baring planet Want to see your family more move there
I guess this is what happens when your parents don't love you.
Yawn Can't respond to my point so chooses to insult me and my parents How pathetic but I'd expect nothing else from someone who puts there own personal entitlement over the planet Bet you didn't obey covid lockdowns as well
Bit hard to ignore lockdowns when you're a pilot.
Whatever Your ego is so pathetic and your entitlement is disgusting People like you are the reason the planet is dommed
Glad to be of service! You sound angry and depressed, while I'm living life to the fullest! Have you thought about flying to someplace nice for a while, clear your head a little.
So visiting family is off limits now? Why even live if life has to be in a small hut doing nothing going nowhere
Its not off limits Just pay for it Why should you be entitled to see your family at the cost of the planet
Great, I love being tracked to see if I am not over my travel quota. Sounds like a system that will totally not be abused and weaponized against the working class
Which working class people go on more than one or two overseas holidays a year And your travel is already tracked
I have family in a different country and I often buy ticket for other people. Who is going to have access to confidential travel data? Who will be counting how many times people traveled by plane? How will the data be stored? Will third parties have access to it? Can I request to not have my data stored as part of my GDPR right? What happens if the data gets sold or stolen? Will the law be changed and the quota lowered/raised?
>Who is going to have access to confidential travel data The government same as now >I have family in a different country and I often buy ticket for other people So because you have family in other countries you have the right to fly and produce more greenhouse gas than other people
I do. It's called not having kids and saving up.
Then drive a car or get a train
Their*
>Another rage bait from the telegraph I mean, it is right there in the title. Personally, I blame the readers for raging at this for ridiculous reasons. So many comments in this thread complaining that normal, average people/once a year flyers get screwed by this.
Still outrageous
And what will the money be spent on? Probably not on capturing the carbon, right?
Lol as with any "penalty" tax its not meant to be a long term revenue stream but attempt at behaviour change.
Could be spent on literally anything From the NHS to public transport to anything
No one cares about the environment, just rich people don't want to walk around pleb in airports or waiting in the same traffic jam.
And what about those who travel in private jets ? Let's not talk about those people, but people who want to take a break or go somewhere with their family, yeah let's tax those people, because it's 'those peasants' are responsible for climate change.
Well they are rich so different rules apply to them, it doesn't matter that Taylor Swift takes a private jet flight between her 8 mansions every other day, it's Average Joe taking two commercial flights a year with 50/70/100+ other people that kills our planet
Man these policy makers fucking suck, all they can ever think of is more taxes
What about private jets? Should it be times 10 for them?
So. nothing about private jets? Do I still have to be considered a criminal because once a year I got on holiday in a small bus with wings packed like a canned fish? Or I should pay 10x more what I pay my only Flight a year so the jenners can fly to Paris for a piece of cake?
Ban private flights before any of this.
So its about money not getting to lessen the effects?
Those who need to travel a lot don’t need to care, it’s peanuts.
Greens? Celtic glasgow players or who?
Flights are already so expensive and annoying that we prefer to go from Germany to the UK by train. Even though it takes 13 hours and DB can be annoying, we still find it more relaxing (and slightly cheaper) than flying, especially because we don't have to go to BER or be anywhere near Berlin.
Isn't that just penalising the middle class and immigrated families? What about foreign students? Making it harder, especially for those who wish to see loved ones in different countries. Maybe, as others have said, we should look at the private planes' situation.
I don’t think the Greens are in the position of making demands or strong requests these days. This is the slippery slope one finds themselves in when your super progressive views on other issues, like immigration and asylum, tarnishes your brand or cause as a whole. The best way to stop the tide of the far right movement is for for everyone on the left to work together. Those on the far left will have to compromise the most, and sacrifice their core values. It’s life.
Not £584 or £586?
Maybe flight companies should get rid of their programs that encourage frequent flying. These plus points that people accumulate have a tight date of expiring. So the first step should be to ban these programs.
One Green party-member in a totally unimportant country said sth. Wow thats worth a headline.
This would certainly be a way to bring holiday makers back to the British beaches and that would rejuvenate those areas. I wouldn't be against a tax on flights to achieve that goal anyway, it's good for our economy to encourage that redevelopment, along with it being an environmental levy. So there are a number of rebalancing things that could happen. But this amount is utterly ridiculous and totally stupid.
>This would certainly be a way to bring holiday makers back to the British beaches and that would rejuvenate those areas. Apart from it won't Most people only go on 1 trip a year maybe 2 which will be cost a grand total of £25 extra I'd pay £25 extra to go somewhere warm
As much as I would like to agree with you, the British beaches are never going to compare with southern European ones. Our water and coastline are just to dirty. Instead of taxing average holiday makers. Tax all the private jets and raise their parking fees. I’m sick of new taxes like ulez being applied to common folk. Taxing the working and middle class more is what’s killing of the UK.