Taxing corporations and consumers for the amount of carbon emissions they generate can be a great way to deal with climate change—so say many leading politicians, economists and environmental activists.
Yet those same taxes also generate controversy wherever they’re adopted or proposed, even causing political leaders to lose elections.
The researchers’ findings are published today in Nature Climate Change.
If you live in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta, you’re subject to the federal carbon tax-and-dividend policy, which recycles carbon tax revenues back to citizens in the form of rebates on their federal income taxes.
Yes, we surveyed people living in all federal-tax provinces, except for Manitoba.
In order for the rebates to have any effect on public support for carbon taxes, people first have to be aware of them, and that’s by no means always the case.
In the two provinces where taxpayers were eligible for federal income-tax credits throughout the period of our study—Ontario and Saskatchewan—most people underestimated how much money their household was getting back.
We provided additional information to half of the respondents, randomly chosen, in Saskatchewan and Ontario, to see if that would correct any misunderstanding they had over carbon pricing.
Even after learning they were getting more money back, Conservative voters were more likely to say they believed they pay more than they get back from the carbon tax-and-rebate program.
Several things, but above all that rebates themselves aren’t an easy solution to sway the public over to supporting carbon taxes.