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Not Even Free Money Can Fix a Carbon Tax？

A carbon dividend seemed like a great way to solve climate politics. But it might not work.

碳红利似乎是解决气候政治的一个好方法。但它可能不起作用。

Once more unto the breach, my friends—once more to talk about carbon pricing.

朋友们，再一次进入突破口，再一次谈及碳定价。

For 40 years, economists and environmentalists have proposed a simple solution to climate change: Put a price on it. If the government levies a fee on every ton of heat-trapping pollution that goes into the air, then the economy will move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources, and carbon pollution will fall over time.

40年来，经济学家和环保主义者已经提出了一个简单的气候变化解决方案。给它定个价。如果政府对进入空气的每一吨热诱导污染征收费用，那么经济将转向更清洁、更便宜的能源，碳污染将随着时间的推移而下降。

In practice, this means raising the cost of fossil fuels—and doing that is easier said than done. Despite support from literally thousands of economists, carbon-price schemes have no near-term chance of passage in the United States, and they cover only about one-fifth of the world’s emissions overall. Researchers have come to understand that carbon pricing presents an unusually difficult political challenge, because it marries very salient costs (all fossil-fuel costs go up, for everyone) to somewhat opaque benefits. Worse, some economists argue that carbon prices fall hardest on the poor, because lower-income households spend more of their income on energy.

在实践中，这意味着提高化石燃料的成本，而这样做说起来容易做起来难。尽管有数以千计的经济学家支持，但碳价格计划在美国短期内没有通过的机会，而且它们只涵盖了世界总排放量的约五分之一。研究人员已经认识到，碳定价提出了一个不同寻常的政治挑战，因为它将非常突出的成本（每个人的所有化石燃料成本上升）与有点不透明的利益结合起来。更糟糕的是，一些经济学家认为，碳价格对穷人的影响最大，因为低收入家庭在能源方面的支出更大。

So in the past few years, advocates have proposed a twist meant to bypass those obstacles and make an uncomfortable idea more acceptable, even popular. Under this new scheme, known as a revenue-neutral carbon price, the government taxes every ton of carbon pollution but, instead of using that money, simply returns it to taxpayers as a payment. In theory, this helps voters see not only the costs (higher prices) but also the benefits (a big juicy check).

因此，在过去的几年里，倡导者们提出了一个转折办法，旨在绕过这些障碍，使一个不便的想法更容易被接受，甚至受欢迎。在这个被称为 "收入中立 "碳价格的新方案下，政府对每一吨碳污染征税，但不使用这些钱，而只是将其作为付款返还给纳税人。在理论上，这有助于选民不仅看到成本（更高的价格），而且看到好处（一张大的多汁支票）。

In America, this “tax and dividend” idea has become fashionable as a nonideological, theoretically bipartisan salve to climate change, a way to tax carbon without growing the size of the government. It is championed by the Climate Leadership Council, the Citizens Climate Lobby, and … nearly zero sitting Republican politicians(alas). But abroad, some countries have actually gone and implemented the policy. And “there are a good number of hypothetical scenarios that show the idea has some promise,” Matto Mildenberger, a political-science professor at UC Santa Barbara, told me. This week, a team of researchers, including Mildenberger, published the first major study of whether a revenue-neutral carbon price actually increases support for climate policy. The results weren’t as good as the theory.

在美国，这种 "税收和红利 "的想法已经成为一种非意识形态的时尚，理论上是两党对气候变化的救命稻草，是一种在不扩大政府规模的情况下对碳征税的方法。气候领导委员会、公民气候游说团和......几乎没有现任的共和党政治家（唉）都在倡导这个想法。但在国外，一些国家实际上已经开始实施这一政策。加州大学圣巴巴拉分校的政治科学教授马托-米登伯格告诉我，"有很多假设的情况表明这个想法有一定的前景。本周，包括Mildenberger在内的一个研究小组发表了关于收入中立的碳价格是否真的增加了对气候政策的支持的第一个重要研究。结果并不像理论那样好。

“We don’t find strong evidence that rebates are increasing people’s comfort with carbon pricing,” Mildenberger said. Even when people receive more in dividends than they pay out in the tax, they resent higher energy prices and tend to view the policy in light of their broader politics. “My basic view is that we’re not seeing evidence that dividends are a transformative way to overcome the politics of climate change.”

"Mildenberger说："我们没有发现强有力的证据表明退税正在增加人们对碳价格的舒适度。即使人们收到的红利多于他们支付的税款，他们也对更高的能源价格感到不满，并倾向于根据他们更广泛的政治来看待这项政策。"我的基本观点是，我们没有看到证据表明红利是克服气候变化政治的一种变革性方式。"

Mildenberger and his colleagues surveyed citizens of Canada and Switzerland, the two countries that have implemented something close to a revenue-neutral carbon price. In Canada, residents of some provinces receive a lump-sum carbon rebate as part of their annual tax return; all Swiss residents see the rebate as a discount on their health-insurance premiums.

Mildenberger和他的同事调查了加拿大和瑞士的公民，这两个国家已经实施了接近于收入中立的碳价格。在加拿大，一些省份的居民收到一次性的碳退税，作为他们年度纳税的一部分；所有瑞士居民将退税视为他们的医疗保险费的折扣。

Neither of these policies is the “ideal” tax-and-dividend scheme that some economists endorse, in which everyone receives a monthly or quarterly check. But they’re close, and they’re admirably progressive: In Canada, for instance, 80 percent of residents receive more in the rebate than they pay out in the tax.

这些政策都不是一些经济学家认可的 "理想 "的税收和分红计划，即每个人每月或每季度收到一张支票。但它们很接近，而且是令人钦佩的累进制：例如，在加拿大，80%的居民收到的退税多于他们支付的税收。

Yet “in practice, people in Switzerland and Canada don’t know much about the rebates they’re receiving,“ Mildenberger told me. “They underestimated the benefit of the policy, and they overestimated the cost.”

然而，"实际上，瑞士和加拿大的人们对他们收到的退税并不了解，"Mildenberger告诉我。"他们低估了政策的好处，也高估了成本。"

In Ontario, for instance, nearly half of respondents didn’t know they had received a rebate. In Saskatchewan, most respondents did know but thought their rebate was, on average,

444. Support for the carbon tax was informed by party ID: Members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which implemented the tax, supported it; members of the Conservative Party opposed it. When the researchers showed respondents their true rebate, nobody’s views changed, but right-wing respondents disliked the policy more. “They became more likely to believe they were getting ripped off by the policy,” he said.

例如，在安大略省，近一半的受访者不知道他们已经收到了退税。在萨斯喀彻温省，大多数受访者知道，但认为他们的退税平均为每年268美元，而实际上是444美元。对碳税的支持是由政党身份决定的。实施碳税的总理贾斯汀-特鲁多的自由党成员支持碳税；保守党成员则反对。当研究人员向受访者展示他们的真实退税时，没有人改变观点，但右翼受访者更不喜欢该政策。"他说："他们更有可能认为他们被这个政策欺骗了。

In Switzerland, most respondents just didn’t know about the rebate. When told how much they had made from the policy, approval of the policy went up, but by a very small amount, the survey found. “There was nothing to support the more ambitious carbon taxes in the future that scientists say are necessary,” Mildenberger said. Last summer, Swiss voters narrowly rejected a larger tax-and-dividend scheme in a national referendum.

在瑞士，大多数受访者只是不知道退税的事。调查发现，当被告知他们从该政策中赚了多少钱时，对该政策的支持率上升了，但幅度非常小。"Mildenberger说："没有任何东西可以支持科学家所说的未来更宏大的碳税。去年夏天，瑞士选民在全国公投中以微弱优势否决了一个更大的税收和分红计划。

These tepid reactions to the policy are strictly irrational for most taxpayers, who are receiving what is, in effect, free money. Yet it makes a certain amount of sense: If you don’t support transforming society (and paying more at the pump) to address one of the major challenges of our time, why should $444 a year change that? “There’s a certain … weirdness to using dividends to solve the political challenges of carbon pricing,” Mildenberger said. “Because the actual benefit of carbon pricing is having a stable climate in 10 years. The payment is, like, a side benefit.”

对于大多数纳税人来说，这些对政策的不温不火的反应严格来说是不理性的，因为他们得到的实际上是免费的钱。然而，这也有一定的道理：如果你不支持改造社会（并在加油站支付更多的费用）来解决我们这个时代的主要挑战之一，为什么每年444美元应该改变这种情况？"Mildenberger说："用红利来解决碳定价的政治挑战，有一定的......怪异之处。"因为碳定价的实际好处是在10年内有一个稳定的气候。支付是，像，一个副作用。"

For Mildenberger, the results suggested that subjective costs and benefits will always trump real economic facts. Because carbon prices affect every facet of the economy, and provoke lots of controversy, “there’s a fundamental asymmetry to the potential benefit you’re getting and the intense messaging you’re getting about costs,” he noted. In Ontario, for instance, the provincial Conservative government put stickers on every gas pump warning about the effect of the carbon price. A onetime yearly payment can’t beat such omnipresent messaging, he said. (Canada is planning to switch to quarterly checks soon, to raise the payments’ mind share.)

对Mildenberger来说，这些结果表明，主观的成本和效益将永远压倒真实的经济事实。由于碳价格影响到经济的每一个方面，并引发了很多争议，"你所得到的潜在利益和你所得到的关于成本的强烈信息是根本不对称的，"他指出。例如，在安大略省，省保守党政府在每个加油泵上都贴上了关于碳价格影响的警告。他说，一年一次的付款不能击败这种无处不在的信息传递。(加拿大正计划很快改用季度支票，以提高付款的思想份额）。

Gernot Wagner, an economist at NYU, was more sanguine about the results. “There are people out there who are convinced their policy design is the answer, and, look, it never is,” he told me. “At the end of the day, it’s all politics. And it’s all identity politics, which is not what we’d like to be the case, but it is.”

纽约大学的经济学家Gernot Wagner对这个结果更为乐观。"他告诉我："有些人相信他们的政策设计就是答案，但是，你看，它从来不是。"在一天结束时，这都是政治。而且都是身份政治，这不是我们所希望的情况，但确实如此。"

In his native Austria, he said, the government just implemented a carbon-tax-and-dividend scheme, along with a slew of business-friendly tax cuts and a national public-transit subsidy. “The whole package is what’s going to make the difference,” he said. More than 20 years passed between the first carbon-tax proposal in Austria, he noted, and the specific combination of policies and coalitions that made it possible.

他说，在他的祖国奥地利，政府刚刚实施了一项碳税和股息计划，以及一系列有利于企业的减税措施和国家公共交通补贴。"他说："整个方案将使情况发生变化。他指出，从奥地利的第一个碳税提案到使之成为可能的政策和联盟的具体组合，已经过去了20多年。

For Mildenberger, though, the results show that it’s very hard to make policy create political feedback loops. In American history, only a few programs—such as Social Security, the GI Bill, and Medicare—have created political conditions that sustain and broaden them going forward. In general, “people are not mobilizing to defend their material interests,” he said.

不过，对Mildenberger来说，这些结果表明，要使政策产生政治反馈循环是非常困难的。在美国历史上，只有少数项目——如社会保障、大兵法案和医疗保险——创造了政治条件，维持并扩大了它们的发展。一般来说，"人们没有动员起来捍卫他们的物质利益，"他说。

In a political environment where election results themselves are contested, it’s folly to expect people to gravitate toward a reality-based understanding of costs and benefits, he said. “There’s much crazier things that people now believe than that the benefits or costs of a policy are

5,000. There may be real limits to how much we can expect the objective structure of policies to reshape politics in this moment.”

他说，在一个选举结果本身就有争议的政治环境中，期望人们倾向于对成本和效益的现实理解是愚蠢的。"现在人们相信的更疯狂的事情是，一项政策的收益或成本是500美元，而不是5000美元。在这个时候，我们能期望政策的客观结构在多大程度上重塑政治，可能有真正的限制。"

It’s a discouraging finding—and one that may point to a more hardball politics of climate change going forward. At least corporations can be counted on to mind their cash flow.

这是一个令人沮丧的发现——一个可能指向未来的气候变化的更强硬的政治。至少可以指望企业注意他们的现金流。