Carbon tax seen as best way to slow global warming

Timothy Gardner
Reuters
Friday, October 10, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Climate taxes, not cap and trade markets alone, will lead to the vast technological changes the world’s energy system needs to fight global warming, a top U.S. economist said on Thursday.

Cap and trade has emerged as the dominant attempt to slow global warming. Global deals in permits to emit greenhouse gas emissions have hit nearly $65 billion a year. The European Union, under the Kyoto Protocol, has embraced cap and trade since 2005 and voluntary markets have developed in the United States, the developed world’s top carbon polluter.

But a straight carbon tax on energy production — at an oil wellhead or refinery for instance — would be simpler and cheaper than putting a cap on tens of thousands of polluters, Jeffrey Sachs, a special advisor to the U.N. secretary general and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University told a panel on Thursday.

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As the world prepares to form a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol by the end of next year, focus is sharpening on how well cap and trade markets are fighting emissions.

Carbon taxes would quickly cut emissions across all sectors of the economy, including vehicles and manufacturing, said Sachs. It could also be more efficient than spreading the trade of permits across the financial system.

“Having a lot of people engineer financial instruments for carbon when there are much more direct ways to do this strikes me as not really a great investment,” Sachs said.

“I’m also not so keen on sending our best and brightest off to do more financial engineering,” he said. “I think the kind of (financial) meltdown we have right is a little bit of an example of how we’ve taken a generation of young people and put them in tasks that don’t really solve social problems.”

Yvo de Boer, the U.N. climate chief, told the panel he doubted voters in the United States and other countries would accept new taxes.

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11 Responses to “Carbon tax seen as best way to slow global warming”

1. Tsul Says:
   October 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm

   Someone please refer this article to Stephen Harper and the average Canadian voter.

   Please?

2. bob Says:
   October 10th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

   How did this one slip by… not a typical article for this website. Call out the poster or should I say poser. In retrospect though, this is just another $ bubble to pop.

3. Rob Says:
   October 10th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

   Stick your “carbon taxes” where the sun don’t shine, punk! The UN is an organization of satanic necropedophile servants to the banking families. It needs to be abolished. Fuck the UN.

4. elmer Says:
   October 11th, 2008 at 7:07 am

   They posted this because it is ridiculous just on its face for anyone who knows anything about science.

   We all emit 1/2 ton of CO2 just by breathing, everything we do emits CO2, driving your car, heating your home, taking a shower or cooking our dinner. They might as well call it a “Life Tax” cause the only way to be truly carbon neutral is to be dead.

5. Ralph C Says:
   October 12th, 2008 at 11:49 am

   I would lile to leave my Carbon footprint on AlGore’s big prevaricating ass. This is a scam of the highest order. Most people have ordered the instruments and uniforms but there’s nobody teaching them to play The greenies have been had and the POlar bears don’t care.

6. blindboy Says:
   October 13th, 2008 at 9:50 am

   Since trees are responsible for converting CO2 to O2, let’s be sure we slash and burn more rain forests. I mean, it’s a no-brainer here: we obviously need more goddamn McDonalds beef than we do oxygen. Right? Kill two birds with one stone? More Big Macs AND we can raise the f@cking carbon tax AT the SAME time!!!

   Win-win !!!

   http://blindboybroadcasting.podomatic.com

7. blindboy Says:
   October 13th, 2008 at 11:36 am

   Reply to Elmer:

   That’s exactly what they have in mind.

8. OldSchool Says:
   October 13th, 2008 at 12:48 pm

   ..one may be led to think of it as global warming when it is in fact, all the poisonous pathogenic aluminized planet-choker they continually pollute our environment with. Go research Chemtrails and you’ll know. Carbon Tax is a farce and Al Gore is a legendary liar! Stop mowing down forests to build country clubs! DIE WALMART DIE!!

9. Big V Says:
   October 14th, 2008 at 1:47 am

   All that nonsense (read ‘governments’, ‘financial crisis’, etc.) and ‘laws’ they invent leaves me totally indifferent. They can always try knockin’ on my door, but I am not sure if someone will ever go back home alive…

10. Robert Says:
    October 14th, 2008 at 6:37 am

    Part of the global warning lie is to make you buy things you don’t need. This “carbon tax” is the other part. It is to be implemented as the very first UN tax.

    They are so busy trying to get it in as a UN tax that they forgot to implement it as a US tax, which I guess is too easy. Can’t you see the benefits in paying this tax? Imagine throwing your money out of your car window as you drive along — there’s your benefit!

11. Linda in RI Says:
    October 14th, 2008 at 7:24 am

    Everyone line up for your yearly lung consumption test, to see what we will charge you for breathing. That’s where being overweight IS a disadvantage, more breaths needed. Guess the skinny people will have to pay for the fat, so there will be a class/weight war between the peoples. War on poverty, better off pay for welfare, war on fat, skinnies pay for fatties.