That's the gist of carbon credits and taxation, yes. The idea is that the finances work as a disincentive at scale, but in reality if your business has no other way to operate, you're just going to pay the tax and live with it.
The airshed is, of course, indifferent to our financial games...
Now, if it actually works to change your behaviour so that you don't emit as much carbon because you can profit on the difference, well, hey! That's a good thing! But I don't think most industries can just stop on a dime and pivot like that.... it may provide incentives in the long term, or it just might end up with all the costs passed back to the consumer, who may or may not actually have a choice where to spend their money. This is basically the worst case scenario, where it just ends up being a financial game and doesn't improve anything. I hear that the solution in this case is just to ramp it up higher so that it eventually forces people to demand change; but they might just demand a change to the tax if no other options are forthcoming.
There's also the matter of catabolic processes, i.e. where something that emits less carbon is only financially feasible because of subsidies / taxes / etc. and in reality does not make economic sense to do. Any energy-generating technology that is not actually profitable without this is arguably taking in more energy than it produces, in the form of the externalities needed to enable it (i.e. fossil fuels that go into the building and maintenance of green energy projects).
The airshed is, of course, indifferent to our financial games...
Now, if it actually works to change your behaviour so that you don't emit as much carbon because you can profit on the difference, well, hey! That's a good thing! But I don't think most industries can just stop on a dime and pivot like that.... it may provide incentives in the long term, or it just might end up with all the costs passed back to the consumer, who may or may not actually have a choice where to spend their money. This is basically the worst case scenario, where it just ends up being a financial game and doesn't improve anything. I hear that the solution in this case is just to ramp it up higher so that it eventually forces people to demand change; but they might just demand a change to the tax if no other options are forthcoming.
There's also the matter of catabolic processes, i.e. where something that emits less carbon is only financially feasible because of subsidies / taxes / etc. and in reality does not make economic sense to do. Any energy-generating technology that is not actually profitable without this is arguably taking in more energy than it produces, in the form of the externalities needed to enable it (i.e. fossil fuels that go into the building and maintenance of green energy projects).