How Governments Tax the Air Without Calling It a Tax
Why Rebranding — Not Climate Change — Is the Real Power Tool
As teenagers, we used to joke about the idea that one day governments might tax the air itself.
“How degenerate would a society have to be to accept that?” we laughed.
Today, that joke has quietly become reality.
Not because air is openly taxed — that would still cause outrage — but because governments have learned something far more effective: never call it a tax.
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The Attempt That Failed
In 2018, Germany crossed a rhetorical red line.
A parliamentary proposal stated:
“The consumption of common goods, in particular air, can be taxed.”
The legal idea was blunt: redefine “consumption” so that emitting CO₂ becomes taxable use of a common good.
Drive a car? Consume air.
Heat your home? Consume air.
That proposal failed. Air is a common good, not state property — and therefore not a legitimate tax base.
The idea was rejected.
Formally.
The Rebrand That Worked
What failed constitutionally returned semantically.
Instead of a tax, Germany introduced carbon trading.
Instead of tax bills, emission certificates.
Instead of “state revenue,” market pricing.
But functionally, nothing changed.
Companies must buy permits to emit CO₂.
They pass the costs on.
Consumers pay — automatically.
By 2024, Germany’s CO₂ price rose from €25 to €45 per ton. Under EU ETS 2, starting in 2027, buildings and transport will be fully included.
What does that mean in real life?
Your winter heating bill in 2027 will be 20–30 % higher — not because you heat more, but because you heat at all.
That’s not behavioral steering.
That’s existence pricing.
Why It Had to Be Rebranded
Calling it a tax would have killed it.
Taxes trigger constitutional limits, parliamentary fights, and voter resistance. “Emissions trading” sounds technical, neutral, even voluntary.
International institutions admit this openly. An IMF report noted that emissions trading has political advantages over carbon taxes.
Translation: same burden, less resistance.
The Shield: “Indisputable” Science
Rebranding only works because it’s protected by a sacred phrase:
“The science is settled.”
The famous “97 % consensus” is cited endlessly. Critics are dismissed as deniers.
But the number collapses under scrutiny.
Economist Richard Tol (2014) examined nearly 12,000 climate papers.
Only 64 of 11,944 explicitly stated that more than 50 % of recent warming is man-made.
The rest were classified as “implicit,” neutral, or methodologically irrelevant.
The 97 % consensus isn’t science — it’s marketing.
This does not disprove climate change.
But it destroys the myth of unanimity.
And without unanimity, policy is no longer beyond question.
From Taxing Possession to Pricing Existence
States used to tax what you had:
- income
- property
- assets
Now they increasingly price what you do:
- heating your home
- driving to work
- transporting goods
- living in winter
Under ETS 2, you don’t need to pollute excessively.
You just need to exist.
This isn’t environmentalism.
It’s a fiscal expansion disguised as morality.
Same Playbook: ESG, Net Zero, Reset
The pattern repeats everywhere:
When “carbon tax” becomes unpopular → cap-and-trade.
When “Great Reset” triggers backlash → ESG.
When ESG turns toxic → sustainable investing.
Same objectives. New branding.
Even former insiders now admit it: the system survives not on efficiency, but on language control.
Conclusion: The Joke Is on Us
In 2018, taxing air was rejected as unconstitutional.
By 2021, people were paying for it — under another name.
Nothing essential changed.
Only the words did.
We stopped laughing —
not because the idea was impossible,
but because we accepted it,
as long as it wasn’t called what it is.
Call it a tax.
Call it a trade.
Just don’t pretend the difference is economic — it’s linguistic.