UnTax – Taxing Away Climate Change

We have tried everything: political decisions, climate change conferences (COP 26 due in 2021), emissions rights trading, or taxing carbon, yet carbon emissions keep rising year after year, and carbon concentration in the earth’s atmosphere are ticking up like clockwork. Nothing suggests that this will change in the near future, despite all the renewed promises by governments worldwide.

Yet the reason for this inertia is simple: the price we pay for fossil fuels, and most other non-renewable resources, is far too low, because we don’t pay for their creation which took hundreds of millions of years, but only for their extraction. And most natural resources are not or only lightly taxed.At the same time, labor is by far the highest-taxed element in most countries, which discourages employment and forces automation into every part of the economy.

This mix-up, a by-product of the industrial revolution, leads to pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, waste production and the unnecessary use of automation, which damages our ecosystems and at the same time deprives future generations of their right to access those scarce resources.

By going back to taxes on the use of non-renewable resources, the UnTax project wants to set this right, fixing almost everything that is broken about our way we deal with natural resources.

How UnTaxing works

Remove all labor-related taxes

Make working and fixing things more attractive by setting all personal taxes and social security payments to zero

Tax non-renewable resources

The tax is set so the price of non-renewable resources is higher than the full cost of recycled/renewable inputs

Tax imports to match domestic outputs

Imports from countries with traditional tax systems are surtaxed to match local products and services

UnTax benefits

Makes employment more attractive

By eliminating taxes and social security payments, labor becomes more attractive and higher minimum wages become possible

Encourages a circular economy

High prices for non-renewable resources encourage R&D that favors products that can be easily repaired and recycled, and supports re- and upcycling

Fights waste, pollution and climate change

Reduces use of non-renewable resources, including fossil fuels. leaving more for our children and cutting waste and carbon emissions dramatically