Maybe they should. But I can't help but comment that you're abusing statistics here. Smaller population countries like Canada and Australia pollute more per capita than the US. Also, the carbon tariff should ideally be applied on an activity-specific basis, not at the national level.
> But I can't help but comment that you're abusing statistics here.
Actually, that was kind of the point. For problems dealing with scarce resources that are shared planet wide (such as the atmosphere or oceans) any fair system to determine how those resources are allocated needs to take into account population, but enforcement of any such allocation has to be done by country. The atmosphere doesn't care about our arbitrary political boundaries, but for enforcement they matter.
Too many people make the mistake of thinking that both enforcement and allocation should be by country.
> Smaller population countries like Canada and Australia pollute more per capita than the US.
Australia does indeed emit more per capita than the US, about 4% more. Canada emits about 4% less. The only countries ahead of the US per capita besides Australia are Qatar, Trinidad and Tobago, Kuwait, Brunei, Bahrain, UAE, New Caledonia, the Dutch part of Sint Maarten, Saudi Arabia, and Kazakhstan.
South Korea is about 25% less. Taiwan and Russia are about 30% less than the US per capita. Germany and Japan are about 40% less. The UK and France are about 65% less. Mexico around 72% less. (China is about 55% less).
> Also, the carbon tariff should ideally be applied on an activity-specific basis, not at the national level.
Correct. The way this would probably best be handled if we had a world government would be a revenue neutral carbon tax on everything. But we don't, so we have to cobble together something else.
I don’t think this makes sense because American productivity depends so much on pollution outsourced to countries like India. For example, if US cars are assembled “greenly” from components that are manufactured dirtily, then it hardly seems meaningful to brag that America’s productivity is “greener”. And do bear in mind that I’m not one of the folks who are determined to make the US out to be the bad guy in every thread.
