What do the defeat of the Lieberman-Warner cap-and-trade bill, the burst of the oil-price bubble, the Wall Street meltdown, the promise of a new political landscape in the wake of the fall elections, and the exigencies of the climate crisis have in common?
To the Carbon Tax Center and CTC's partners at the Climate Crisis Coalition, these events together augur for a resurgence of interest in, and potential political support for, the "gold standard" for carbon pricing: a national, revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Consider:
- The ignominious defeat of Lieberman-Warner, which collapsed in June under its 800-page weight, made crystal-clear that any carbon cap-and-trade system will be dysfunctionally complex, will take agonizingly long to put in place, and will fall prey to massive special-interest ripoff.
- Political prospects for creating trillions of dollars' worth of tradeable carbon emission permits have been further damaged by the Wall Street debacle and the resulting backlash against insider speculation and profiteering.
- Retreating prices for oil and other fossil fuels strengthen not just the need, but also the political wherewithal for taxing fuels for their carbon content.
- The success of the movement to elect Barack Obama to the presidency signals an era of new possibilities in which, just possibly, shibboleths such as "no new taxes" may get tossed into history's dustbin -- particularly if carbon taxes are made revenue-neutral via tax-shifting or revenue distribution.
To pivot off this moment, CTC and CCC today, with other allies, are launching the Price Carbon Campaign. The campaign begins with three elements:
- an online petition to the Obama administration and Congress calling for serious consideration of a national carbon tax during the first hundred days of the new Washington regime;
- a letter-writing campaign to members of Congress. Your letter will be directed not only to your Senators and member of Congress (keyed by your zip code), but also to House and Senate leaders who hold sway over climate and tax legislation; and
- a congressional briefing on carbon taxes focusing on the environmental, economic, economic-efficiency, logistical, and political benefits of a national carbon tax.
The briefing, featuring NASA lead climatologist (and carbon tax advocate) James Hansen, economists Gilbert Metcalf and Robert Shapiro, and Canadian public affairs expert James Hoggan, and hosted by Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn., 1st district), is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing room on Tuesday morning, Dec. 9.
For further details on the briefing, click here. We hope to generate thousands of signatures and letters between now and Dec. 9, so please visit the Price Carbon Campaign now.
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Comments
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newnoah Posted 2:03 pm
21 Nov 2008
But the real problem with such a thin edge of the wedge carbon tax is that it can't possibly scale up to even deal with New Denial, gradual, we've-got-time-to deal-with-it, mid-century target, climate change. And you know like I know that the real CC danger is not gradual warming but going over a tipping point to uncontrollable CC NOW, that CC is an emergency requiring massive systemic change not just incremental change within BAU, not just the paltry emission reduction produced by a carbon tax acceptable within BAU.
So why are you mis-educating with a supposed solution that we should all get activist behind at this crucial time? Read your CLIMATE CODE RED. Help get cc recognized as the emergency it is; help by advocating for an emergency government with the power to accelerate the systemic socio-economic changes we need to make - and then it's time for carbon tax policy.
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Zephaniah Posted 9:18 am
22 Nov 2008
However, it would just fuel global warming if the cap and trade law does the following:
1. gives away permits instead of auctioning them; 2. delays 3. puts the caps too high, allows as much or more fossil fuel use as now; 4. fails to establish the percentage of yearly reductions now leaving corporations unable to plan and therefore staying with familiar fossil fuel; 5. allows the giant loophole of offsets to be used; 6. fails to plan for possible violations.
If we avoid these, cap and trade may work. Of course there are still more issue, like how do you deal with corporations increasing fossil fuel burning offshore factories to avoid the law?
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