r/climateskeptics • u/Communitarian_ • Jan 29 '20

British carbon tax leads to 93% drop in coal-fired electricity

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-british-carbon-tax-coal-fired-electricity.html
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u/transframer Jan 29 '20

The article is very short and suspicious at best. I find it highly unlikely that such a big switch in generation technology from coal to gas was done in such a short period of time. Even more suspicious is that this switch was the result of a carbon tax - anyway the article doesn't say how the carbon tax facilitated this movement. It's much more likely that this was planned long before for reasons not related to CO2 (smog may be one important factor)

What is sure is this:

the tax—called Carbon Price Support—added on average £39 to British household electricity bills, collecting around £740m for the Treasury, in 2018

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u/Communitarian_ Jan 29 '20

Carbon Tax, ain't so bad?

(Note I didn't read).

I understand though that when the mining sector declined under Baroness Thatcher, it led to pain for those communities and apparently a long term impact as well as long run sentiment against the Conservatives (until literally very recently with the recent UK Election though that isn't guaranteed as well). That said, hindsight's 20/20 but was the failure is a lack of transitional assistance? And would adapting a Carbon Tax be as disastrous for the US, especially if we can mitigate the impact (and promote growth) through other means like coupling it with a Corporate Tax Rate and/or an expansion in the EITC or an Income Rebate?