Thread by @giulio_mattioli

I am worried about emerging 'post #giletsjaunes' consensus that taxing motor fuel is about the most socially unjust thing you can do - or 'class war' (see below).

That would be a real shame coz it's not *exactly* so - let's have a look at the evidence

https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1071407305349099520

There are loads of studies on the distributional impacts of carbon taxes, and they show that they have a regressive impact (unless you redistribute revenue) - but *less so for transport* than for domestic energy. Why that?

Well transport GHG emissions increase very rapidly with income - much more so than domestic energy (graph for 🇬🇧 from goo.gl/dcZz5v). Middle & high-income groups own more (& more powerful cars) & travel much longer distances. The income gradient is quite steep

GHG emissions for domestic energy are much more even across the income spectrum - affluent households may have bigger houses, but they don't heat them 20 times as much. So if you tax them, it's going to be quite regressive.

This is also the case when the energy transition is funded by electricity surcharges as for the German Energiewende (see paper). But we don't see massive social movements against electricity taxes - which is interesting
gws-os.com/discussionpape…

TBF there is a recent study precisely on the distributional impact of the French carbon tax, and it finds that it's similarly regressive for both transport & domestic energy (tankona.free.fr/audreyberry201…). But the author admits that this is vs. what most other studies have found

For example @mmbuchs found that the tax burden of a carbon tax in the UK would be regressive in all sectors... except transport. (Chapter available at eprints.soton.ac.uk/364955/1/CO2%2…)

The reason for lower regressivity of transport carbon tax is that many low-income people do not own cars, when they do they`re less powerful and they don't drive them as much.

See graph for England (figures at goo.gl/m62DFx). The many carless low-income HH would not have any burden from a fuel tax -while enjoying all the benefits. It's very different for car-owning low-I HH though. So looking at averages for income deciles is a bit too rough

In our @TranspPoverty research we found that 9% of 🇬🇧 HH have low income + high motoring costs, they would suffer a lot from a fuel price increase. But another 10% is low-income and would not (most don't have cars).
(paper at doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.…)

A French study has found similar results: 8% are in (transport-related) fuel poverty, and another 7% are 'vulnerable', but that leaves another 21% of low-income households who are not.
doi.org/10.1016/j.erss…

So yes, there is a group of car-dependent low-income households who would suffer from higher motor fuel taxes, but that's not the case for many others. Also a wholesale opposition to fuel taxes lets higher income households (with their high consumption of fuel) off the hook

Also guess who generally suffers most from the 'externalities' of car use (safety, air pollution, etc.)? Low-income groups. All those would be reduced if we managed to curb car use.

So by all means let's worry about the social impacts of motor fuel taxes, but let's not simplify things too much. And more than anything we should be talking about how to avoid that low-income households are forced to rely on expensive car ownership and use