Thursday, May 8, 2008

Great week for truth in carbon pricing

Three heartening developments:

Obama gained high ground by acknowledging the inconvenient truth: reducing fossil fuel prices in the face of climate catastrophe isn't a good idea.

British Columbia initiated a revenue-neutral carbon tax with dividend to create incentives for a more carbon-efficient economy.

Two courageous EPA enforcement attorneys exposed the manipulations and failures of cap-and-trade.

Maybe good politics and good policies are beginning to align.

Along with Al Gore and NASA's Dr. James Hansen, economists from left to right (Rob Shapiro, Bill Nordhaus to Greg Mankiw and Ken Greene) agree: pricing greenhouse gas emissions is a necessary first step in any effective effort to combat global warming. And like the EPA whistleblowers, they agree that a revenue-neutral carbon tax would work much better than cap-and-trade.

Because I'm convinced that a gradually-increasing revenue-neutral carbon fee would stimulate our entire economy towards efficiency and renewables (and create incentives for our trading partners to follow suit) I volunteer for the Carbon Tax Center.

We have much work ahead to build support for a carbon fee and dividend system, but after this week, I have hope.

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