Agreed. My point is, however, that while carbon pricing may be ultimately a political decision, technology has plenty of opportunities to make this decision easier and more likely to happen.
A country deciding to correctly price in environmental impact today would tank its economy on the spot. But availability of alternatives with lower emissions to various economical activities (e.g. electric cars as an alternative to ICE cars) allows that country to incentivize their use and offers opportunities to start pricing in emissions piece by piece.
The reasons why good solutions aren't implemented aren't always and only "because politicians are corrupt"; sometimes it's because they're impossible to push through (e.g. you'd lose election to someone who doesn't want to do this), and/or because going full-steam ahead risks social unrest and civil war, none of which will help climate.
Kind of. I know only a bit about Polish excise taxes, and I don't think the taxes on petrol and LPG were introduced due to climate concerns. Taxing other fuels used for electricity generation and heating dates back to XIX century, way before anyone thought about the impact on climate.
Here's a breakdown of Polish fuel prices as of 2016:
TL;DR: price breakdown for Pb 95 gasoline: 39% net refinery price, 37% excise tax, 3% road tax, 19% VAT, 2% seller's margin. A carbon tax could presumably take the place of excise tax, but given that it's a big part of country's tax income, I think it'll have to be added on top.
As for acceptance, I'm somewhat surprised we don't have our own "yellow vests" - ask any Polish driver about gasoline prices, and you'll hear an angry rant about how expensive it is; mention a carbon tax, and they'll scream at you that >50% of the price is already taxes.
I figured that the main point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive, so people would use less of it. And I think those Polish drivers are right. People would not accept a carbon tax on top of excise taxes on gasoline. In Estonia the 44.1% of the final price of gasoline was excise taxes and another 20% of it was VAT. 64.37% of the final price was purely tax.[0]
The story is very similar in all the other European countries as well. Countries that have a GDP per capita 2 to 3 times lower than the US are paying more for gasoline.
>Then this should be what all of us are focused on because the future of humanity is dependent on getting everyone on board with this.
How about we make so much technological progress that removes our reliance on cheap carbon emissions that we can tax carbon emissions without affecting people very much therefore removing the need to get everyone on board.
Then this should be what all of us are focused on because the future of humanity is dependent on getting everyone on board with this.