The Opinion Pages <http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html> | Editorial
Proof That a Price on Carbon Works By <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/opinion/editorialboard.html> THE EDITORIAL BOARD JAN. 19, 2016 <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/opinion/proof-that-a-price-on-carbon-work s.html?comments&_r=0#permid=17270567> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/opinion/proof-that-a-price-on-carbon-works .html?comments&_r=0#permid=17270567 http://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/01/19/opinion/CARBON/CARBON-blog427.jpg Credit Hieronymus Lawmakers who oppose taking action to lower greenhouse gas emissions by putting a price on carbon often argue that doing so would hurt businesses and consumers. But the energy policies adopted by some American states and Canadian provinces demonstrate that those arguments are simply unfounded. Around the world, nearly 40 nations, including the 28-member European Union, and many smaller jurisdictions are engaged in some form of carbon pricing. In this hemisphere, British Columbia, Quebec, California and nine Northeastern states have raised the cost of burning fossil fuels without damaging the economy. <http://alberta.ca/climate.cfm> Alberta, Canada's biggest oil and gas producer, and <http://www.ontario.ca/page/climate-change> Ontario have said they will adopt similar policies. Carbon pricing comes in two forms: a direct tax on emissions or a cap on emissions. British Columbia, for instance, has levied a tax on emissions from fuels like gasoline, natural gas and heating oil. California and Quebec, which are working together, place a ceiling on overall emissions and allow utilities, manufacturing plants, fuel distributors and others to buy and sell permits that entitle them to emit greenhouse gases. Like the cap itself, the number of permits decline over time, becoming more expensive. Many economists regard carbon taxes as the simpler and more elegant solution, and cap-and-trade systems like the one that failed in the United States Congress as complex and hard to explain. But both systems effectively raise the price of using fossil fuels, which encourages utilities and other producers to generate more energy from low-carbon sources like solar, wind and nuclear power. British Columbia, which is home to 4.7 million people, has placed the highest price on emissions in North America, taxing a ton of carbon emitted at 30 Canadian dollars, or about $21. By comparison, emission permits in California and Quebec are <http://calcarbondash.org/?gclid=Cj0KEQiA5dK0BRCr49qDzILe74UBEiQA_6gA-uzAIMg JLLXrHK8opd1kC_rwQnNR2O_fE8sOT3NSQCgaAu5u8P8HAQ> trading at about $13 a ton. And permits sold for $7.50 a ton in a <http://www.rggi.org/market/co2_auctions/results> December auction in the Northeastern trading system known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. That system covers emissions from power plants in nine states that include Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts. British Columbia started taxing emissions in 2008. One big appeal of its system is that it is essentially revenue-neutral. People pay more for energy (the price of gasoline is up by about 17 cents a gallon) but pay less in personal income and corporate taxes. And low-income and rural residents get special tax credits. The tax has raised about $4.3 billion while other taxes have been cut by about $5 billion. Researchers <http://sustainableprosperity.ca/content/british-columbia%E2%80%99s-revenue- neutral-carbon-tax-review-latest-%E2%80%9Cgrand-experiment%E2%80%9D-environm ental> have found that the tax helped cut emissions but has had no negative impact on the province's growth rate, which has been about the same or slightly faster than the country as a whole <http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&id=3840038> in recent years. Meanwhile, jurisdictions using the cap-and-trade approach like <http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/auctionproceeds/auctionproceeds.htm> California, the nine Northeastern states and <http://www.mddelcc.gouv.qc.ca/changements/carbone/index-en.htm> Quebec are investing the revenue generated by auctioning emission permits in mass transit, energy efficiency, renewable energy and other strategies to reduce carbon emissions. Some of the revenue is also dedicated to helping low-income families cope with higher energy costs. In recent months, the leaders of Ontario and <http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-climate-change-plan-1.33485 72> Manitoba said they would join the California-Quebec cap-and-trade system. In October, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he was interested in <https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-joined-vice-president-gore- announces-new-actions-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions> linking the Northeastern system to the California-Quebec trading platform. From: Mark Wain (A.K.A. Andrew Colesville) My own comments: The idea of carbon tax for solving the greenhouse gas emission problems is not going to work. The reasons are that, firstly, it is contrary to the very condition for the system to exist and survive, namely the profit-maximization principle, and secondly, it requires the realization of a family of renewable energy sources which can overwhelmingly defeat with higher efficiency and totally substitute the carbon-based operations. None of the two conditions exists let alone prevails. Carbon-based energy sources are the most profitable ones hence no any other one can take their places when within the bound of the system. Profits come from the labor forces mining coal, oil and gas, which are plenty and cheap; while solar, wind and hydraulic operations, once built, can last a long time with very little, if any, labor forces employed, hence much less profitable than the coal-oil-gas (C.O.G) operations. Because of the differences of profitability between these two types of operations, the C.O.G operations account for 90% of the energy production and the renewable operations for only 10% of which 8.4% comes from the hydroelectric power and solar and wind account for the rest 1.6%. To rectify such an intolerable situation, public investments in energy production must be called forth, but by whom? There is no hope to wait for the existing system to change in such a way all by itself that the contradiction between the societal common good and the private profitability be resolved. --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
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