Climate Change is one of the most critical issues our country faces, yet few politicians are willing to take it on. On the left, the focus is on stopping the Keystone pipeline, and on the right many deny the scientific community consensus.
We have studies the science, and find it compelling. The warming trend is there, it continues, and the evidence suggests it is caused by man's activities, primarily from burning fossil fuels.
On the right, some object to action on climate change because they feel the science is unproven, and they believe action might harm our economic growth.
Yet inaction is a form of action...and if the scientific consensus is correct, a very dangerous course to take, especially given that there are indeed sensible approaches which would be far more likely to accelerate economic growth rather than dampen it.
We favor tax policies which encourage economic growth, and as such would favor a shift to a carbon tax. Imposing a carbon tax on oil at the point where it is refined allows us to efficiently price petroleum to include its externalities, costs which it imposes on society which are not presently priced into the product.
Similarly, imposing a carbon fee on utilities based on the coal they burn would properly price the burning of coal to include external costs. Studies have shown that a carbon tax on coal would be more than offset by the savings to our health care system which would result from a shift to cleaner energy sources. This kind of approach is simple, clean, and makes sense.
If each energy resource pays its own way, the marketplace will efficiently shift to greener energy sources. We should stop subsidizing fossil fuels and let the price reflect the true cost.
Further, a uniform carbon tax, if adopted globally, would accentuate the economic advantage the U.S. already enjoys in the global economy from our extensive resources of unconventional gas. As such, it would boost US job growth in energy-intensive manufacturing and processing industries.
We should design such a tax to be adopted globally, as part of an international protocol which countries could voluntarily join, and which imposes a border tax adjustment on any products imported to the U.S. from non-participants.
- The emerging economies which depend heavily on exports to the U.S. would quickly join such a protocol. And if such a fee is imposed globally, by each participant, no economic advantage would be gained or lost by any country, except to the extent which they are dependent on dirty fuel sources.