Global Climate Change is a problem that the world has to start seriously addressing in the coming years. The IPCC stated in its 2007 Summary to Policymakers that, “Carbon dioxide is the most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 ppm3 to 379 ppm3 in 2005. The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide in 2005 exceeds by far the natural range over the last 650,000 years.” The facts of the debate are in and human caused carbon dioxide appears to be the major contributor to global warming and the resulting climate change. Because of these facts there should policies put in place to reflect the realities of the world we live in today. There must be some sort of Carbon Tax that translates the environmental cost of carbon emissions to an economic one.
Taxing carbon does several things that will tackle the problem of carbon emissions. The tax will decentivize carbon based fuels and processes that produce the undesired emissions. Companies will look to alternative means to get the energy they need to continue manufacturing. The tax will also raise the price of goods that use the most carbon to be produced. From gas guzzling cars to inefficient coal burning energy plants, there will be a public incentive to find goods and services more energy efficient and cleaner. But there are drawbacks to a carbon tax that must be address. The construction industry will take a heavy hit from the carbon tax. Iron/ Steel Production and Cement Manufacture rank as the 3rd and 4th highest sources of carbon dioxide emissions (EPA). A nationwide increase in construction cost due to increase in construction could potentially lead to a painful blow to the construction industry which rely heavy on concrete and steel for building materials. Another factor that also needs to be considered should be that low income households have less disposable income and already don’t have the means to buy cleaner products.
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| Figure 1 2006 Sources of CO2 Emissions. This figure illustrates sources of CO2 emissions for 2006. Fossil fuel combustion is by far the largest source of CO2 emissions, From IPCC |
Many of these issues can be solve by the collected revenues from the tax. The tax must be used to subsidize low income household with an overall tax credit. This credit will allow low income earners to still get the good and services they need and still avoid the higher carbon products. Some of the revenue of the tax should also use to subsidize carbon neutral and sustainable technologies and fund sustainable construction projects to help lift the markets harmed by the tax. The overall goal is to force heavy polluters to change energy sources not to punish consumers.
Carbon Tax enforcement is also difficult to enforce because it requires infrastructure to monitor and assess carbon emissions from practically every industry. One of the ways that governments have approach it is to regulate the carbon emission like volatile emissions. Other countries adopt a Cap and Trade type system that gradually raises the cost of carbon emissions overtime. Each of the systems used have positives and drawbacks associated with them.
A Carbon Tax will not solve the climate crises but it will be step towards addressing the problem. If design and implemented intelligently the system will behave positively and begin to change course. Other factors still need to be change such as the behaviors of everyday people but there needs to be an economic change to inform the social change.
Bibliography
IPCC (2007). Summary for Policymakers. In Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M. Tignor, and H. L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York. NY, USA. Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://www.urban.illinois.edu/courses/up446/sp11/Reader/2_IPCC%2007%20Policy%20Document.pdf
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2006). Human-Related Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide. Received from http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/co2_human.html
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