Spend a month shadowing an average family. Ask them how much they care about climate change, and ask them where that compares relative to putting food on the table for their families. Ask them if they would pay double their current electric bill per month if it would increase the chances of combating climate change by an unspecified amount. See what answer you get.
Unfortunately, I am inclined to agree with this. Many (though by no means all) people are focused on what they see directly front of them. They don't account for the enormous costs that are coming down the pike, for which they and their children and grandchildren will pay, one way or another - more droughts, floods, crop failures, refugees, political instability, forest fires, permanently rising sea levels, massive extinctions. Think about just one of these things - what it would mean to live in a world - the world we are leaving our children - where sea levels, rather than being more or less constant like they have been over the last 10,000 years, rise rapidly and inexorably over the course of centuries as Greenland and Antarctica melt, with absolutely no way of stopping it. With constantly changing coastlines, how could you have a port, with all of its required and extremely expensive infrastructure?
Better education is part of the answer. But it's unlikely to be sufficient.
So how can we get people on board for taking action now? From a political perspective, we absolutely need to do two things. One is to give people something direct and tangible upfront to counter the immediate costs they will incur. The second is to give people a sense of control over what they pay - give them the ability to reduce their costs, and, by making good choices, even turn a profit.
The cleanest way to do this (I think) is to tax carbon at the source and then immediately turn around and hand over ALL the proceeds to the people pro-rata.
The rebate part is really important. People will like getting a check in the mail every month. By design, their costs will go up as well. But the nice thing about this system is that, a) on average the costs and proceeds balance out exactly; and, very importantly, b) people will have some control over what their costs are - they will be able to make decisions about their energy use and in a way decide how much they are going to pay. If people are "average" in their carbon emissions, they will pay nothing - proceeds will balance extra costs. If people choose to emit less than average, by for example insulating their home better, buying better appliances and more efficient cars, installing solar, buying less junk, etc, they will make a profit - their rebate checks will be larger than their costs. And finally people who decide that their boat or large house or vacations in far flung places are important to them (I'm not judging here; for example I have a large, old and and not terribly energy efficient house myself), can continue to do this, although they'll have to pay more, to cover the costs of their emissions.
I expect that a scheme like the one above would rapidly and relatively painlessly bring down carbon emissions. It would also do so in the most economically efficient way.
(Exports would need to be given a carbon credit and imports from countries without a carbon fee would need to be assigned a tariff to equalize the playing field. This is doable).
