> It is true but not on individual level, on country level.
It's true all over the place.
Suppose you live in a country which gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels. Well, that sucks, so now your average energy costs go up by $1000 a year. You can't afford that! Only you get it all back. You get a $1000 dividend, use it to pay for the same energy you did before, and nothing changes.
Except for one thing. When your country continues its path to industrialization, nobody is ever going to build a new coal fired power plant again. All the new capacity will be non-fossil fuels, because now they're much cheaper relative to coal -- no carbon tax.
The only cost you're really paying is the relative price difference between fossil fuels and alternatives. But that's already close to zero and has non-cost benefits for your country like air quality and energy independence.
Moreover, the idea that this is some cost for developing countries that developed countries didn't have to pay is also a lie. The cost of renewables is driving the cost of fossil fuels down through competition. The carbon tax is only needed to prevent that -- to keep their price back up around their traditional cost, which makes them uncompetitive with the falling price of renewables, so that they die out instead of the lower demand causing their price to fall to the point that they still end up as 20-50% of generation capacity.
It's true all over the place.
Suppose you live in a country which gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels. Well, that sucks, so now your average energy costs go up by $1000 a year. You can't afford that! Only you get it all back. You get a $1000 dividend, use it to pay for the same energy you did before, and nothing changes.
Except for one thing. When your country continues its path to industrialization, nobody is ever going to build a new coal fired power plant again. All the new capacity will be non-fossil fuels, because now they're much cheaper relative to coal -- no carbon tax.
The only cost you're really paying is the relative price difference between fossil fuels and alternatives. But that's already close to zero and has non-cost benefits for your country like air quality and energy independence.
Moreover, the idea that this is some cost for developing countries that developed countries didn't have to pay is also a lie. The cost of renewables is driving the cost of fossil fuels down through competition. The carbon tax is only needed to prevent that -- to keep their price back up around their traditional cost, which makes them uncompetitive with the falling price of renewables, so that they die out instead of the lower demand causing their price to fall to the point that they still end up as 20-50% of generation capacity.