Steering toward net zero—a plea for a consumer-level carbon footprint tax

Tobias Pröll () and Christina Sichtmann ()
Additional contact information
Tobias Pröll: BOKU University, Institute of Chemical and Energy Engineering
Christina Sichtmann: Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Business

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2025, vol. 30, issue 5, No 5, 8 pages

Abstract: Abstract Past and current policies appear ineffective in limiting global warming to below 2 °C, as the share of fossil energy has stayed well above 80% for the last 30 years, and global greenhouse gas emissions still show a rising trend. A small but fundamental change in perspective could have the potential to enable a democratically supported last-minute turn toward a sustainable economy. We define a set of criteria that climate policy instruments should ideally meet in order to be both effective and sustainable. For fulfilling these criteria, we rationally propose a paradigm shift with respect to carbon taxing. Instead of taxing emissions at the chimney, our proposal is to re-consider a consumer-level tax on the carbon footprint of products and services combined with a rigorous lump sum refund policy. This could potentially eliminate relevant obstacles for unilateral application of effective carbon prices. We also mention potential challenges with the proposed option. It is our aim to bring the possibility of a consumer-level carbon footprint tax to the attention of the scientific community and to trigger multidisciplinary research on this topic.

Keywords: Climate change; Carbon tax; Carbon footprint; Consumer; Policy; Carbon dividend; Social sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11027-025-10222-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:masfgc:v:30:y:2025:i:5:d:10.1007_s11027-025-10222-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11027

DOI: 10.1007/s11027-025-10222-z

Access Statistics for this article

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change is currently edited by Robert Dixon

More articles in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().