[jadedhacker]

Carbon taxes have to be astronomical to actually affect market behavior. Better to take direct control and titrate down carbon fuels while ramping other methods.

The market can't do it except by perhaps a happy accident, an accident that would be resisted by the established players. Look for the big oil companies to buy up green startups and kneecap them to keep the oil money flowing. Consumables are much more profitable than capital purchases like solar panels, ask the printer makers about their ink.

[avar]

Then carbon taxes should be astronomical, they need to offset the currently huge free externality of releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Surgical interventions like subsidizing solar only address part of the problem, and do nothing about e.g. pricing in the real cost of livestock carbon release.

[aninhumer]

The parent was not suggesting subsidies, they were suggesting nationalising the entire energy industry and managing it to address the problem directly.

A carbon tax might work in theory, but the political reality is that as long as fossil fuels are a profitable business, any such tax will be fought tooth and nail at every step of the way.

It is now far too late to expect the market to turn itself around. If we want to fix the problem, we need to take away the power that maintains it.