Clinton G. Wallace (South Carolina; Google Scholar) presents Taxing Luxurious Emissions, 106 Cornell L. Rev. __ (2023) (with Shelley Welton (Penn)) (reviewed by Tracey Roberts (Cumberland; Google Scholar) right here) at UC-San Francisco at this time as a part of its Tax Coverage Colloquium hosted by Manoj Viswanathan:

A bunch of latest financial and sociological research have documented the rising problem of carbon inequality — that’s, excessive class disparities in carbon emissions each inside the USA and globally. These research present an alarming divide, with the highest 10% of emitters producing half of all emissions and the highest 1% alone producing 17% of emissions, whereas the underside 50% of the world produces solely 10%. These disparities are pushed by “luxurious emissions” produced by the carbon-intensive life of the wealthy, which too usually embrace non-public jets, mega-SUVs, yachts, and a number of mansions.

Local weather change regulation has been gradual to react to the fact of carbon emissions inequality — whilst public and media outrage has mounted. Maybe discouraged by a long time of gradual progress on each wealth redistribution and carbon consumption coverage, policymakers and authorized students have but to place ahead any severe proposals for a way the regulation would possibly, or ought to, account for class-based emissions disparities.

This Article builds the case for embracing efforts to parse luxurious and non-luxury emissions in local weather coverage design. Luxurious carbon is, we assert, distinguishable on a number of salient grounds, together with morally, socially, and politically. In a world going through a grave must parsimoniously devour our remaining “carbon finances” to keep away from catastrophic warming, carbon-intense luxurious consumption is condemnable in ways in which the quotidian — and infrequently structurally constrained — consumption selections of the plenty will not be. Luxurious consumption additionally drives broader consumption patterns via social dynamics that multiply the results of insurance policies to control high-end emissions, whereas additionally doubtlessly activating class politics to construct supportive political coalitions. After drawing out these distinctions, we discover easy methods to design a carbon tax to focus on luxurious emissions, contemplating potential tax bases, charges, and income makes use of. We thus present a blueprint to spark debate and dialogue round how the regulation would possibly appropriately account for pernicious class divisions in local weather culpability.

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/03/wallace-presents-taxing-luxury-emissions-today-at-uc-san-francisco.html