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A former Clinton administration commerce department official today released a report arguing that a global tax on companies’ greenhouse house gas emissions is a more efficient way to combat global warming than the carbon trading markets endorsed by a host of government officials and corporations like Alcoa (AA), BP, (BP), DuPont (DD), Duke Energy (DUK) and General Electric (GE). "A carbon tax would both directly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide powerful incentives for technological progress," wrote Robert J. Shapiro, a Washington D.C. consultant, veteran think tanker and former under secretary of commerce for economic affairs. "Carbon taxes also should provide greater incentives for companies to develop new, environmentally-friendly technologies or abatement strategies than a cap-and-trade program." Shapiro’s study was released by the American Consumer Institute, a free-market oriented Washington group.
Corporations currently are not charged for the economic and environmental impacts of their greenhouse gas emissions, though those "externalities" affect everyone. Under a carbon tax, those consequences would be calculated and a tax imposed accordingly. "Since every government needs revenues, the challenge is to design taxes so they distort those relative prices as little as possible. Part of the answer is to make the base of the tax as broad as possible, so its rate can be low and most people and activities are affected equally," Shapiro wrote. "Carbon taxes generally meet this criterion, although not as well as broad income or consumption taxes. However, their economic drawback of raising the price of carbon-intensive products and operations, relative to those which are not carbon-intensive, is also their environmental purpose." Companies that do not emit greenhouse gases – such as solar and wind producers – or sell greener goods and services – would benefit. The government could use carbon tax revenue to support renewable energy technologies, cut corporate taxes or increase health spending, according to Shapiro.
In contrast, cap-and-trade programs impose a ceiling on greenhouse gas
emissions and then allow companies that lower their emissions to sell
carbon allowances to those that do not. Europe created a carbon trading
market to implement the Kyoto Accord and legislation before the U.S.
Congress calls for a similar market in the U.S. Shapiro contends that
global carbon trading is too complex and susceptible to market
manipulation by shady companies and corrupt governments. While Shapiro
says a carbon tax would be cheaper and easier to implement, he
acknowledged the challenges in getting governments and corporations to
agree on what specifically will be taxed and the tax rate.
Green Wombat 
The biggest hurdle of cubing green house gases is a viable implementation plan for a solution. Pie in the sky ideas sit on the shelf and never get implemented. You have key ingrediants for improvement right now, most of all momentum by leaders in industry to implement. A market based solution creates a positive incentive for industry to make money on their improvements. This becomes part of the financial payback equation and will motivate companies to go beyond just meeting a standard. A tax will only offer a negative incentive and companies will only do what it takes to stop the pain. It is kind of like a pit bull that has a hold of your arm. All you want to do is get it off your arm. Once you do that the pain will go away (after nursing the wounds). Where is the motivation in the for the company to do more???????
The tax is not on the company, but on the consumer. It will be passed along. Taxes don’t fight polution. Take the windmill farms for example. They are not as efficient and do not have the distribution, etc. – yet; therefore, the electricity cost more. But also, it is subsidized by the tax payer. Double whammy. So the carbon tax is just another way to increase our taxes. Give incentives for technology, etc. vs. taxes increases.
this is basic–if you want less of something–tax it–if you want more give it a subsity.
Europe have had high taxes on carbon emissions (or gas)for ages now and as a result of it we use far less “carbon” then americans.
Taxes on something that is unwanted or harmful is the only type of taxes I really think is beneficial to our society. I wonder what Ayn Rand would have thought of carbon tax.
All of this is of course predicated on the notion that global warming is a human caused activity. Since time immemorial, the earth has gone through warming and cooling cycles. Mr. Gore, what caused previous warming periods in earth’s history?
Ummm, and who will be responsible for paying the carboon tax when the next volcanic eruption occurs? C’mon, let’s be honest – the global warming scare tactics are being used to further socialism through global government takeovers of industry. (If you can’t win at the ballot box…) The earth has been warming and cooling on its own for four billion years, and that certainly isn’t going to change. And the parasites will never run out of ways to tax the producers so that they themselves won’t have to expend any of their own energy to become producers.
I think that this does not sound like a bad idea if it pushes companies to create enviromentally friendly products but you cannot just force something like that. I think that all this will do is make everyone hae more taxes and the government gain more money from its citizens.
“What are some of the real facts?
I guess the best argument is that global warming has occurred, but it began in 1680, if you want to take the latest long-term warming, and the climate changes all the time. It began in 1680, in the middle of what’s called “The Little Ice Age” when there was three feet of ice on the Thames River in London. And the demand for furs of course drove the fur trade. The world has warmed up until recently, and that warming trend doesn’t fit with the CO2 record at all; it fits with the sun-spot data. Of course they are ignoring the sun because they want to focus on CO2.
The other thing that you are seeing going on is that they have switched from talking about global warming to talking about climate change. The reason for that is since 1998 the global temperature has gone down — only marginally, but it has gone down. In the meantime, of course, CO2 has increased in the atmosphere and human production has increased. So you’ve got what Huxley called the great bane of science — “a lovely hypothesis destroyed by an ugly fact.” So by switching to climate change, it allows them to point at any weather event — whether it’s warming, cooling, hotter, dryer, wetter, windier, whatever — and say it is due to humans. Of course, it’s absolutely rubbish.”
Canadial Cliamtologist – Timothy Ball
Those of you out there who think our recent global warming trend is not man made are simply not looking at the data. The debate is over…human activity is causing the recent heating trend. Say it to yourself slowly and really listen until it sinks in. The longer you wait, the bigger a fool you will feel in the coming decades.
A tax on carbon emissions is one way to help curb useage. If not implemented well, it could be a disaster. I think we should simply have a cap on the total amount of oil we import. That’s a start. Everything will get more expensive, but people just don’t seem to want to volunteer to reduce their energy consumption. The only way to reduce consumption of something that’s inexpensive and popular is to make it more expensive.
I heard that flatulence was worse than CO2. Are we going to tax that, too? Get the government out of my business. Global Warming has not been scientifically proven!
I blame all the vegetarians for global warming. They are eating the very things that absorb CO2!
Wait – More humans are exhailing CO2 then ever before in the history of the Earth. AIDS, Cancer, Heart Disease, Poverty, Hunger, and Wars are the answer to combat global warming since less people equals less CO2. I just “discovered” a correlation between population growth and CO2 levels.
After eating my lettuce, I’m going to hold my breath so I die!
Just another blunder to make the United States less competitive..as if China and the worldwide network of slaves that we have developed will ever pay the global tax. US consumers will pay for it, just like we pay for everything else.
Screw China, Screw India, Screw all of you.
This proposed tax not only would give an incentive companies to reduce their carbon emissions but would help pay for reaserch into new fuels
True, the earth has been warming and cooling according to its own devices for time eternal. Such a truism does not make for an argument against global warming / climate change because it is insufficient: the RATE of change is what is so alarming. Global warming is hardly a “liberal thing”, it’s a human thing.
We tax all sorts of things we want more of. Now, let’s tax what we want less of: carbon emissions.
The only way to introduce a carbon tax is to make it totally neutral at introduction—no net increase in taxes. Income and sales and property are now taxed, why? They’re good for society, right? Nobody could argue that consumption of middle east oil is good for society, so add a carbon tax while pulling back on income, sales and property taxes. The nice thing about a carbon tax is that if you don’t want to pay it, you can switch to renewables, live where you work and bingo – you don’t have to pay taxes. It’s up to you.
From previous posts:
“We tax all sorts of things we want more of. Now, let’s tax what we want less of: carbon emissions.”
“Income and sales and property are now taxed, why? They’re good for society, right? Nobody could argue that consumption of middle east oil is good for society, so add a carbon tax…”
These quotes are scary stuff!!!
Is the proper role of government really to perform social engineering?
Government is _defined_ by its ability to enact and enforce regulation against behavior which might occasionally otherwise be indulged in. So since government is based on force, physical force, we must first ask what physical force is morally appropriate for, before we can decide what the role of government should be.
Now, my momma taught me that physical force is only morally appropriate for defense, self defense and mutual defense, against other (unaccepted) physical force and against deceit; regardless of who is stronger, or how many people are on each side, even if one side is the majority of the whole community (town/state/nation/world). Didn’t your momma teach you that, or something very much like it? Admit it!
Now, if you agree with this moral argument about force, then you must conclude that it is inapproprate for government to be involved in general social engineering, i.e. generally trying to figure out and impose “the greater good”, but rather, it must be limited to defending against other force and against deceit. In fact, I’d argue that the greater good would be best served if government were thusly limited.
So I dismiss arguments that it’s OK in general to tax something just because many people think it would be for some “greater good”; I mean, who the hell am I to decide that for you, or vice versa?!?
On the other hand, pollution is a form of actively physically harming people and property involuntarily, so it can be argued from the above that people have a right to decide how much pollution they’re willing to suffer and at what price, then require payment from the producers and verification that they’re not cheating.
Clearly, this is impractical on an individual basis (imagine billions of lawsuits!), but a collective of people, as represented by their governments, or by some other communitywide agency (a Worldwide Airowner’s Association, if you will; like a condo association, but the property in question being the Earth’s atmosphere and the shareholders being everyone), certainly could perform the sale of collective pollution rights contracts as well as their verification and enforcement. This is where the idea of “cap and trade” systems find their moral foundation.
That this moral derivation describes a market-based system is no coincidence, by the way…
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As far as global warming, what’s really needed here, to cut through all the BS and guessing, is what is called in scientific terms a “control”; something to compare Earth’s recent temperature changes against that can eliminate variables other than the one under study.
If you just compare Earth during this century against Earth during any other century, you have two variables: manmade pollution and solar output, so that won’t work. What we need is to measure some _other_ planet, where there is no manmade pollution, but that underwent a directly proportional level of solar output.
And it so happens that we have the perfect thing; it is called _Mars_!!! People have been taking very detailed telescopic photos of Mars nearly nightly for over a century now; plenty long enough to factor out its different year length, orbital eccentricity, axial tilt, etc., and concentrate on its long term temperature trends (as represented by ice cap proportions in the photos), to compare trends under the same sun against Earth over the same period, which happens to be the only period of substantial pollution, the period we care about for this question.
So somebody really should go round up copies of all the observatory photos they can get, and do a study along these lines, to put an end to the debate once and for all. Now, I’m personally not really in a position to call up Palomar Observatory and all the others around the world and ask for this, but someone somewhere must be. Someone at NASA maybe? Please?
Carbon Tax vs CarbonTrading
Carbon emissions trading currently underway in many parts of the world including Europe is suggested to be the solution for providing incentives to corporations to reduce their emissions. Lately, I have been thinking about how a Carbon Tax would be a …
I started to look at the cause for global warming by looking at the data. Here are my result.
There are much talking but how many of you actually look at the data of competing theories.
Most climate scientists have only studied thermodynamics and meteorology and because of that favor greenhouse gases as a cause for global warming.