A Carbon Tax Would Be Cleaner

08/23/2007 by Charles Komanoff

A Carbon Tax Would Be Cleaner (Wall Street Journal Op-Ed)
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3 Comments »

  1. The op-ed concludes:

    At the end of the day, a strict cap-and-trade program would have the
    same effect as a carbon tax, one that’s high enough, eventually, to
    encourage switching to cleaner generation, but that’s gradually imposed
    over a decade so that companies have plenty of time to plan.

    Such a tax would make emissions more expensive; discourage carbon-intensive
    power generation; and it would allow the market to decide which environmentally
    more-friendly technologies would be competitive enough to take its place.
    A tax per ton of carbon would mean higher power prices, too, but without
    direct subsidies to developing nations by paying for their power-plant
    upgrades.

    Nor would a carbon tax create a new multibillion-dollar global commodity
    whose value would depend on political manipulation. The feds could use
    the revenues from such a levy to reduce other taxes—including dividend
    and capital-gains taxes further to spur the massive private investment
    needed to build the next generation of power generators—while ensuring
    that they’re also creating a political and regulatory climate to encourage
    such mass-scale construction.

    If it’s true that a global warming consensus really exists—and not
    just in press releases and speeches—politicians and business leaders
    wouldn’t be afraid to suggest such a tax. They would insist on it.

     

    Comment by Dan — August 23, 2007 @ 8:57 am

  2. The last paragraph — the last two sentences – appear to me as perhaps the snazziest sample of global warming denial I have seen recently. At odds with the well-reasoned, well-written essay itself. "Concensus" is denied because nobody is going the Carbon Tax way. Entirely untouched and unacknowledged are other motivations, like people morally and intellectually acknowledging global warming and the need to spectacularly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while feeling ambivalent about dedicating themselves to what seems a not-so-fun lifestyle. It makes me wonder whether we should consider adapting the famous prayer of Saint Augustine: "God, grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" — by substituting carbon sins for carnal sins.

    Comment by David Collins — August 24, 2007 @ 12:49 pm

  3. #2: To be fair, I’m not sure there is a “consensus” yet, at least in the democratic sense. While many of us paying close attention have formed an opinion, I suspect many, many more are still unclear about a lot of details. An an anecdote, I was recently called by someone polling about issues in the upcoming presidential campaign. When asked what I thought was the number 1 issue, I said “Iraq”. When asked for number 2, I paused and then said, “global warming”. His response was a puzzled, “really?”. If someone asking this question a lot is surprised that global warming might appear at number 2, then consensus is still off in the distance somewhere.

    Comment by Bob Arning — August 25, 2007 @ 10:23 am

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