The trouble with carbon tax

Sir, – A carbon tax, as with all indirect taxes, takes no account of ability to pay and therefore invariably hurts the lowest-income households the most. That’s socially regressive. They also give governments a financial interest in citizens polluting.

Every time a tonne of CO2 is released into the atmosphere, it does the same damage regardless of whether it is emitted by a high earner or a low earner – and irrespective of how much tax gets collected by the State.

So why can’t we abolish all “green” taxes and move to a system of annual carbon quotas for individuals or households? That would be a far more egalitarian solution as high earners would have to consume and pollute within the same limits as the poor. – Yours, etc,

RONAN SCANLAN

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Leopardstown,

Dublin 18.

Sir, – Perhaps an EU-wide response to carbon taxes is what is required to overcome national political resistance to increasing carbon taxes.

The issue is global, and the response must be transnational. – Yours, etc,

PATRICIA O’RIORDAN,

Dublin 8.