Gernot Wagner

👍 x2

PS: Yes, the price of the KlimaTicket just increased by almost 20% on August 1, also for budgetary reasons (and misguided ones at that).

But of course, KlimaTicket + 20% still better than no KlimaTicket.

And yes, I have one again for this coming year. 😎

bsky.app/profile/gwag...

Klar.

+20% ist schlecht, vor allem wenn Dieselprivileg, Pendlerpauschale, Kerosin ohne Mehrwertsteuer, usw. bestehen bleiben.

KlimaTicket +20% immer noch besser, natürlich, als kein KlimaTicket.

Und zu guter Letzt auch auf Deutsch, and last but not least in German: gwagner.com/faz-industriepolitik mit @monika-schnitzer.com in @faznet.bsky.social

Yes, carrots and sticks.

In fact, carrots before sticks.

/fin

Policy sequencing toward decarbonization by Jonas Meckling, Thomas Sterner & Gernot Wagner

For more academic: gwagner.com/policy-sequencing with @jonasmeckling.bsky.social & Thomas Sterner

For long-form essay: gwagner.com/taming-carbon

For more recent, with @monika-schnitzer.com gwagner.com/carrots-sticks

And yes, that carrot-stick story, and especially how to sequence things goes much deeper than that.

For my earliest entry on the topic, in 2015 in Nature: gwagner.com/push

Both the KlimaBonus (now gone) and the KlimaTicket (slightly scaled back, but still there) are the carrots.

The carbon tax is the stick.

I wrote this all up at the time in my @bloomberg.com column: gwagner.com/risky-climate-austria

Back to the Austrian Climate SuperBowl weekend in October 2021: it's a big deal that those transit subsidies came hand-in-hand with the carbon tax (which most Austrians experience most directly at the pump; i.e. with their cars).

KlimaTicket

The KlimaTicket is such a good deal that it paid for me, New York-based Austro-American to get one, too.

For Austrians in Austria, it's a nobrainer, and that's the point: It makes trains, trams & buses the obvious choice. No need to think about it. Hop on and ride.

On Friday, October 1, the government coalition of Conservatives & Greens finished negotiations for the KlimaTicket — one highly subsidized ticket to use transit in all of Austria for the low low price of €3 a day, more subsidized for teens, etc.

But the real carrots & sticks story goes via something else: Klimaticket, not Klimabonus.

The timing, up to a point, was coincidence. But that first weekend in October 2021 was the Climate Super Bowl weekend in Austrian climate politics, if Austria cared about the Super Bowl, that is.

Also key: the Austrian tax "only" covers CO₂ not already covered under the EU's emissions trading system.

As that market is expanding, the tax is becoming less important.

Goes for Austria, goes for carbon tax pioneers like Sweden & Norway as well.

The tax raised some €2 billion, paid back via the Klimabonus.

So far so good.

Now that bonus got killed, while the tax remains in place, basically in an attempt to fix the budget deficit.

All still a-okay from a climate perspective.

The typical carbon tax play goes via something akin to Austria's Klimabonus: tax carbon, take the money and pay a dividend.

@cclusa.org is all about that plan. It's a good idea.

Austria passed one in October 2021, under the leadership of then climate minister @lgewessler.bsky.social.

²/ₙ

How a Carbon Tax Plan in Europe Survived (Mostly)

Austrian carbon tax goes NYT: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/c...

Yes, the tax survived, while the dividends just got killed by the new government.

But the real story isn't necessarily about the "Klimabonus", but the Klimaticket(!).

mini-Austro-🧵

Both Brimstone & Sublime just signed major deals jump-starting their clean cement production.

Listen to their CEOs Cody Finke & Leah Ellis tell their stories via this @yearsofliving.bsky.social × @columbiabusiness.bsky.social production: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

YouTube video by Columbia Business School Brimstone: Mixing Things Up

The cement industry is a massive polluter, but Cody Finke and his team of scientists may have a solution. Follow @columbiabusiness.bsky.social Professor and Climate Economist @gwagner.com to Brimstone's lab to see what’s really going on. To learn more: bit.ly/3I7C7oT www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQXP...

14-year-old off to work

Final day on his first job for the 14-year-old, and he's as enthusiastic as he was on the first day 😎

Dandelion

ca. 1992; I was 12 then :)

Can't help but think this is whatever is left of the Post wishing it had half the spine of a student newspaper

Climate change The Big Read. Can the world’s beaches survive a sand shortage?

"Sand shortage"

Pointless self-harm to humanity is the common thread here.

Goes for health and vaccine the same way as it goes for climate, US competitiveness, and any number of issues.

YouTube video by Gernot Wagner Chasing a Roadie home through Central Park on my Brompton #newyork #cycling

Chasing a roadie down home through Central Park on my Brompton 🚲😎

youtube.com/shorts/8UVWT...

YouTube video by Gernot Wagner Brimstone: How one company uses different rocks to make the same cement

If you're on @billmckibben.bsky.social's newsletter, you've already seen the link to the unlisted version.

Latest video now formally up/out: Brimstone's Cody Finke talking cement decarbonization, rather convincingly I might add

youtu.be/55zoqRej9JQ

Tesla board awards $30bn of shares to 'energise and focus' Elon Musk

I'd be energized and focused for half that

Only a strong, confident organization would celebrate its own defeat like this 😎

Welp now my post shows up on a general query about a REAL HISTORICAL FACT lmao. Google is cooked

Feels like the sunset of an empire.

COPAFS, we hardly knew you.

Thank you for your service, and to @aeainformation.bsky.social for this quick and clear statement.

Well, I'm optimistic about about renewables and low-carbon tech.

US competitiveness I that low-carbon world? Sadly not at this rate.

And yes, part of the 'problem': low prices also means low profits.