Should the Eurasian Conference Adopt a Global Carbon Tax?

2011-04-22T11:52:00.000-07:00

Our planet is warming at an alarming rate. Indeed, 2010 was the hottest year ever for Mother Earth. Regardless of what the media may broadcast, there is overwhelming world-wide consensus among climate scientists that:
➢ the climate is undergoing a pronounced warming trend beyond the range of natural variability;
➢ the major cause of most of the observed warming is rising levels of the greenhouse gas CO2;
➢ the rise in CO2 is the result of burning fossil fuels;
➢ if CO2 continues to rise over the next century, the warming will continue; and
➢ a climate change of the projected magnitude over this time frame represents a real danger to human welfare and the environment.
The world has made two noble and unsuccessful attempts to address this crisis, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the 2007 Bali roadmap. Both of these efforts seek to limit global greenhouse gas emissions by asking countries to voluntarily reduce their greenhouse gas emissions radically, and the Bali Roadmap includes provisions for healthy forest, technology exchanges to the developing world and financing. There is no consequence for signatories of these agreements for not meeting targets. As a result, the Kyoto Protocol failed to slow global warming and the outlook for the Bali Roadmap is just as bleak.
In view of these previous failures and the urgency of the problem, it is time to institute a global carbon tax as the central mechanism for reducing carbon emissions. Currently, the prices of gasoline, electricity and fuels in general include none of the costs associated with devastating climate change. This omission suppresses incentives to develop and deploy carbon-reducing measures such as energy efficiency (e.g., high-mileage cars and high-efficiency heaters and air conditioners), renewable energy (e.g., wind turbines, solar panels), low-carbon fuels (e.g., biofuels from high-cellulose plants), and conservation-based behavior such as bicycling, recycling and overall mindfulness toward energy consumption. Conversely, taxing fuels according to their carbon content will infuse these incentives at every link in the chain of decision and action — from individuals’ choices and uses of vehicles, appliances, and housing, to businesses’ choices of new product design, capital investment and facilities location, and governments’ choices in regulatory policy, land use and taxation.

The Global Carbon Tax will be revenue-neutral meaning that little if any of the tax revenues raised by taxing carbon emissions will be retained by government. The vast majority of the revenues will be returned to the public, in the form of subsidies, research and development of clean energy technologies and transfer of these technologies to developing countries; a small amount will be utilized to mitigate the otherwise negative impacts of carbon taxes on low-GDP countries of the Eurasian Conference. Under the carbon-tax model, countries will need to guarantee that their domestic carbon price be at least at the level of the international norm -- a relatively straightforward and transparent choice.
The question: Should the Eurasian Conference levy a Global Carbon Tax?
A) Yes, the Eurasian Conference should levy a Global Carbon Tax based on yearly carbon emissions.
B) Yes, the Eurasian Conference should levy a Global Carbon Tax based on carbon emissions since 1990.
C) No, the Eurasian Conference should not levy a Global Carbon Tax.