Stalwart Republican, former Bush advisor, and Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw makes the case for the carbon tax. He also thinks a carbon tax is the most achievable global policy:
A global carbon tax would be easier to negotiate. All governments require revenue for public purposes. The world's nations could agree to use a carbon tax as one instrument to raise some of that revenue. No money needs to change hands across national borders. Each government could keep the revenue from its tax and use it to finance spending or whatever form of tax relief it considered best.
I guess I hadn't considered the possibility of persuading (or requiring as part of some international treaty) other countries to tax carbon along with us. But I'm liking the idea.
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
Comments
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sunflower Posted 3:07 am
18 Sep 2007
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mkayser Posted 3:24 am
18 Sep 2007
I am not sure whether he's right that a global carbon tax is politically easier to create than a global cap-and-trade regime. But, if a carbon tax is less likely than cap-and-trade to give money to coal companies, I'm for it. Carbon tax is regressive, so give the revenue to poor folks a la the Tufts proposal, don't waste it on coal companies.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:33 am
18 Sep 2007
Simply put a tariff on the imports if there isn't a carbon system in the other country.
That would get them to switch to carbon taxes real quick ;D
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:32 am
18 Sep 2007
Imagine free thinking citizens hurdling millions of Carbon Tax certificates into the harbor, once they realize what a sham the whole AGW thing is.
Global Warming = Global Taxation = Global Fraudsters
John Bailo
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KiraMarch Posted 6:21 am
18 Sep 2007
One is his view that carbon tax revenue would be used for "good" purposes, and that a carbon cap would raise no money. In reality, it could cut either way -- under a cap, revenue from an auction of carbon allowances could fund good things, and carbon tax revenue could get shanghaied into support for heavy carbon-emitting interests (oil companies hold no sway with Congress, right?).
Nat Keohane, the director of Environmental Defense's economic policy and analysis, did a post on this yesterday... it outlines other troubles with Mankiw's column, and is quite accessible, especially for one econ PhD arguing with another econ PhD. :-)
http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/2007/09/1 ...
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