The debt deal reached by the White House and Congress will likely trigger deep spending cuts for many energy and environmental programs for years to come, a shift many fear could have long-term repercussions on public health and the emergence of new energy technologies.
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carbon tax
In the summer of 2009, U.S. and Australian climate politics had a similar look and feel. The lower houses of legislature in each country had passed carbon trading schemes and were waiting on their respective senates to act. While the U.S. House’s wide-ranging cap-and-trade bill didn’t stand much of a chance in
The Australian government has unveiled a proposal to tax its heaviest carbon dioxide emitters as of July 2012, a plan that would make Australia the first nation to put a price on carbon.
The plan, which is expected to pass both houses of parliament before the end of the year, would require
The results of political compromise — maybe by definition — are seldom satisfactory to anyone. But hasn’t this whole process recently gotten worse than ever before? The ultimate version of the healthcare reform that the Obama administration put through was the product of a hammer and tongs fight from the
The U.S. consumes a lot of fossil fuels from the burning of electricity inefficiently to driving inefficient cars and trucks on the highway. Politicians, the media, and others in society talk about the need for the U.S. to become energy efficient due to environmental reasons such as the threat posed by climate change if no action is taken. Yet, many policymakers are devoid
Environmentalist David Orr says the easy part of helping the United States live within its ecological limits may be passing laws, such as one that puts a price on carbon. The hard part, he maintains in an interview with Yale Environment 360, is changing a culture of consumption that causes extensive environmental damage — and unhappiness.
Long before buzzwords like “carbon footprint” entered the general lexicon, David W. Orr was working on ways to help humanity lighten its impact on the natural world. A professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College and the author of six books, including Ecological Literacy, Orr has focused on how to best educate students about using the Earth’s resources prudently. He also has been a leading proponent of sustainable design on the country’s college campuses, and was the driving force behind building Oberlin’s $7 million Environmental Studies Center, considered a model of green architecture in the U.S.
We can’t successfully tackle climate change without changes to the corporate regime which has been in place in America since the Reagan presidency. That’s the underlying message of Charles Derber in his latest book, Greed to Green: Solving Climate Change and Remaking the Economy. It’s a message he delivers with directness in a book much more readable than I expected from an academic sociologist.
He accepts the position of scientists like James Hansen and others who point to the ominous dangers of tipping points in climate and conclude that we are already above a safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which they consider no more than 350 parts per million. It’s not a happy acceptance. “No sane person would wish it to be the scientific truth,” he writes.
Derber recounts the terrible difficulty he had, after realising with despair the seriousness of climate change, in dealing emotionally with the prospect of mass, collective death — “more difficult than dealing with my own personal death.”
The only good news he discerns is that the scientific truth may be spreading and leading to a tipping point in the world’s social and political awareness.
A state panel recommended that most of the proceeds from a proposed carbon tax in California, set to take effect in 2012, should be given back to consumers. The 16-member Economic and Allocation Advisory Committee, charged with figuring out the most cost-effective way to implement a tax on carbon emissions, threw its support behind a so-called “cap-and-dividend” approach.
Such a plan would set a steadily decreasing limit on CO2 releases by major emitters, place a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and then give most of the revenue back to citizens.
France is currently thinking of enacting a carbon tax to increase climate change mitigation efforts. If enacted, it would be applied to the consumption of energy in general.
With French electricity being mostly low carbon, the majority of the tax revenues would come from the transportation and housing sectors.
It is worth noting that this new tax would be compensated by a decrease in charges associated to labor.
A ton of carbon dioxide would cost emitters €32 euros (around $45) in 2010 and would bring the government an estimated €8.73 billion ($12.328 billion) during the first year.
Out of these, €3.57 billion would be collected from French households and the remaining €5.16 billion from companies and administrations.
In order to divide greenhouse gases emissions by a factor of four by 2050, the tax would increase with time to reach €56 ($80) in 2020, €100 ($140) in 2030 and around €200 ($280) in 2050.
The debate over a national cap and trade system for carbon is moving along in Congress, though probably not as quick as the Obama administration would prefer. The Waxman-Markey Bill (HR 2454) certainly has as its cornerstone a national cap and trade system as has been previously blogged. The Bill sailed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The real battle may lay in the House Ways and Means Committee where Republican members are pushing for a mark-up of the Bill, meaning Members would have a chance to offer amendments to address the concerns they have heard from their respective constituents.
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