There’s a Simple Solution to Fixing Climate Change, So Why Isn’t It Working?

In his new book, Why Carbon Taxes Failed, Daniel Driscoll, a University of Virginia assistant professor of sociology, takes on one of climate policy's biggest puzzles: why the tool economists have championed for decades as the simplest, most efficient way to cut carbon emissions has produced little more than political turmoil.

Published this summer by Oxford University Press, the book draws from archival documents, statistical data and in-depth interviews with policymakers and activists, including extensive fieldwork with France's Yellow Vest movement, the largest popular uprising ever triggered by a carbon tax. Rather than blame failed carbon taxes merely on climate denial, ineffectual institutions or the fossil fuel lobby, Driscoll advocates for a more nationally targeted solution. Whether a carbon tax succeeds or collapses, he argues, depends on how well it aligns with the politics of the country’s macroeconomic structure and whether governments offer key coalitions affordable replacements for fossil fuels. Without such an approach, national policymakers are playing a game of what he calls “carbon tax roulette,” which could lead to equity concerns, political backlash, policy abandonment and other issues likely to undermine the success of the strategy.

The book offers insights on the individuals on the front lines of the climate change fight. From meeting bureaucrats in government palaces for formal interviews to dodging tear gas with protesters at winter demonstrations on the outskirts of Paris, Driscoll shines a light on the human impacts of the climate struggle and offers a more practical path forward.

From Why Carbon Taxes Failed

Paris, France, August 2018
Unnamed Government Palace

I'm lying on the floor of my fourth-floor studio in the 12th arrondissement, willing myself to get up. The scorching heat makes moving a chore. I curse as I put on a dress shirt and pants, necessary for the formality of my coming meeting, but torturous given that current temperatures are above 32 degrees Celsius. After hurrying down to the closest metro station, Ledru-Rollin, I board the metro and join a moving mass of sweating bodies.

Emerging several stops later, I step outside and walk to what only can be described as a palace: tall and bold Lutetian limestone walls leading to a gray, welded zinc roof, materials hearkening back to Baron Haussmann's renovation of Paris in the mid-1800s. I head to a side-security entrance, as instructed, walk past a couple guards, and take the service elevator up several floors to meet in a vaulted conference room with a bureaucrat sitting at the table, waiting for me. I begin the interview, as I sometimes do, by getting straight to the point.

"Who fought the carbon tax in France?"

"We had three kinds of opposition," he says. "First, the business community and most of the people in the conservative parties. They don't like taxes. Second, local or sector opponents. For example, the members of the French National Assembly who represent an area in which a big factory produces cars. You see, carbon taxes are experienced very differently depending on the kind of local industry. And third, working people in the middle of the income distribution. Those people are the masses, and they emit a lot toward aggregate emissions. They have to pay the carbon tax, but I think it is very difficult to convince them."

"Do the masses know about the current carbon tax?"

"The previous government was very lucky because when we introduced and increased the carbon tax, the global price of gasoline and oil fell. Soon, however, this very year, we will have an increase in both oil prices and the carbon tax, so people will start to see the impact."

Cologne, Germany, April 2019 
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies

Raindrops pummel my office window. I look out into the street at the deluge flowing into gutters. I gaze back at my computer screen, filled with output from statistical software attempting to explain what drives national carbon tax adoption.

After months of work, I'm still astonished by the sheer amount of freely available data on the subject. One hypothesis leads to a Google search. A Google search leads to an online dataset. An online dataset leads to a data download and import. And voilà — I can test whether x hypothesis explains national carbon tax adoption. The freedom to test any such hypothesis, however, comes with irony. No matter what dataset or "theoretically relevant variable" I try, not one explains carbon tax adoption in a country better than its fossil fuel energy levels.

Despite this challenge, I keep testing, and the rain keeps falling. The signing of international climate accords? Not significant at all. The influence of specific political parties? No. Aspects of trade? Wealth? NGO influence? Cultural forces like religion? Still no. The same finding keeps returning; the more fossil fuels in a country's energy supply, the less likely the country is to tax carbon. In short, if carbon taxes are a medicine taken by those sick with carbon-dependence, it is only self-administered by those who are mostly well.

Paris, France, December 2019 
Unnamed Neighborhood on the City's Periphery

"Why must this revolution happen in winter?" Raphaël quips, lifting his twinkling eyes, his hands hovering over the trashcan bonfire.

I chuckle. "I know . . . the sun isn't even up yet." I pull my beanie lower over my ears before returning my hands to the heat.

He smiles ruefully. "This is the struggle."

"That's true." The logs crackle in the fire, throwing up tiny sparks as I speak. "Do you come to many of these Saturday protests?"

"Not all of them because I often work on Saturdays. I'm a bus driver."

"Oh, wow. So you really felt the carbon tax."

"Oh, of course. That was the hardest part for me. It is impossible to live with."

"Mostly for driving the bus?"

"Yeah, and even for my own car. I live outside of Paris so it's just too high."

"Oh, man. You got hit double. Bus and car."

"Exactly. It was double for me," he says.

"What do you think of the government saying the tax is for climate change?"

Raphaël whistles low and rolls his eyes. "It's bullshit. And the tax is nothing for people living in Paris. They all have the metro. All my family in the countryside felt this immediately."

"I can imagine," I say.

"That's why, even when I drive my bus, I put my yellow vest on the windshield. It's to show support for the movement and challenge the government. So many others do this for our justice. Yes, we care about the climate, but justice too. We say it's the same battle."

Hearing the murmurs in the now growing crowd, we turn around. People are congregating in front of the old community center, the protest poised to start.

The above scenes vary on the surface. They include different weather patterns, for one: extreme heat, heavy rain, and freezing cold. They also offer different contexts: government palace, research institute, and street protest. Yet one common thread is most striking. Each scene depicts human society resisting a massive transformation. And that transformation is decarbonization.