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Global Warming’s Simple Remedy (carbon tax)
Anne Applebaum, Washington Post
…I was convinced by the reigning consensus on global warming a long time ago, have accepted that human use of fossil fuels has caused it and am very glad so many European politicians take the scientists’ words seriously. The question now is whether these same Europeans will start taking the solutions seriously. If so, they must begin by abandoning the bankrupt Kyoto treaty on climate change and encouraging the United States to do so, too.
The much-vaunted treaty creates a complicated and unenforceable system of international targets for carbon emissions reduction, based on measurements taken in 1990. Critics of the American president have condemned him for failing to sign it, conveniently forgetting that the Senate rejected it 95 to 0 in 1997, a margin that reflects broad bipartisan opposition. At the same time, few of the Asian and European signatories are actually on track to meet their goals; those that will meet the targets, such as Britain, can do so because their economies rely less on industry than they once did. Canada and Japan aren’t even close to compliance; China and India, whose emissions rates are growing most rapidly, are exempt altogether as “developing” countries — which, given their economic strength, is absurd.
None of which is to say that reduction of carbon emissions is impossible. But the limiting of fossil fuels cannot be carried out with an unenforceable international regime, using complicated regulations that the United Nations does not have the staff or the mandate to supervise, with the help of a treaty that effectively penalizes those who bother to abide by it. I no longer believe that a complicated carbon trading regime — in which industries trade emissions “credits” — would work within the United States either: So much is at stake for so many industries that the legislative process to create it would be easily distorted by their various lobbies.
Any lasting solutions will have to be extremely simple, and — because of the cost implicit in reducing the use and emissions of fossil fuels — will also have to benefit those countries that impose them in other ways. Fortunately, there is such a solution, one that is grippingly unoriginal, requires no special knowledge of economics and is easy for any country to implement. It’s called a carbon tax, and it should be applied across the board to every industry that uses fossil fuels, every home or building with a heating system, every motorist, and every public transportation system. Immediately, it would produce a wealth of innovations to save fuel, as well as new incentives to conserve. More to the point, it would produce a big chunk of money that could be used for other things. Anyone for balancing the budget? Fixing Social Security for future generations? As a foreign policy side benefit, users of the tax would suddenly find themselves less dependent on Persian Gulf oil or Russian natural gas, too.
Most of all, though, the successful use of carbon taxes does not require “American leadership,” or a U.N. committee, or a complicated international effort of any kind.
(6 Feb 2007)
California Senator Barbara Boxer is currently asking constituents to rate energy proposals. A carbon tax was conspicuosly missing from the options. -BA
Australia: A tax for our future
Tim Colebatch, The Age
…I may be warped after 20 years of covering global trade negotiations, in which endless meetings have produced just one agreement, full of loopholes. On climate change, governments face a much tougher set of issues than on trade. They must focus not on the ideal outcome, but the best outcome possible in the real world.
That’s a global carbon tax. Rather than countries trying to negotiate caps on each other’s emissions, they would negotiate a common tax to be placed worldwide on significant emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, whether in Melbourne or Mumbai.
With a common tax, emission caps would not force industry to relocate overseas. Governments would have a source of funds to invest in developing or spreading energy-saving technologies. And that gives them an incentive to make it work.
In the short term, the International Energy Agency argues, the top priority must be to raise the efficiency with which we use energy: in buildings and appliances, transport and industry. Why? Because that’s where we already have the technology to cut global energy consumption by 10 per cent – equivalent to China’s entire consumption.
In the long term, it says, “there is no single solution. The world energy mix must combine greater energy efficiency improvements with more renewables, more nuclear energy, and many more fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage – assuming that technological progress can make these solutions cost-effective and safe.”
Only a global agreement can provide the certainty investors need. We need to work at full speed for that, while acting on our own to make cars, buildings and appliances more energy-efficient, and investing heavily in developing renewable and cleaner coal technologies – without playing favourites.
(6 Feb 2007)
Climate ‘realism’ demands carbon tax
Charles Komanoff, Gristmill
…No less vexing, for this writer, was Robert Reich’s blog reaction to the IPCC report. The former Clinton Secretary of Labor hadn’t even finished his lead paragraph when he threw in the towel: “You can forget a carbon tax any time soon.”
C’mon, Bob. Don’t mourn, organize. Surrendering just when a political critical mass is assembling to attack carbon emissions is, well, un-American. A carbon tax is essential, and the work of coaxing the public and pressuring policymakers has to start now. There’s just no alternative.
Reich advocates a temporary windfall profits tax on oil companies to finance R&D in non-fossil based fuels. But what’s holding back renewables isn’t a lack of know-how, but the lack of a valuation of climate damage in the prices of fossil fuels. Reich’s windfall tax might have meant something in the Clinton years. Now it would be a hollow, ineffectual gesture.
The Big Green groups have a different answer. Their flirtation with carbon cap-and-trade systems has turned into a torrid love affair. NRDC and Environmental Defense have teamed with ten giant industrial corporations, including GE, Alcoa, and PG&E, to push carbon cap-and-trade legislation through Congress.
What’s wrong with that? A lot.
(7 Feb 2007)
