Pirate's Cove

The Washington Post editorial board is on a roll in calling carbon taxes the best solution for Hotcoldwetdry, and want Democrats to embrace them

Why won’t Democrats embrace this solution for climate change?

IN AN ideal world, our leaders would acknowledge the danger of climate change and seek the best way to combat it. If they did, they would easily find an answer that is effective and progressive: The latest bulletin from the International Monetary Fund maps what it would take to restrain warming to tolerable levels without wasting massive amounts of money or unnecessarily harming workers, companies and households.

In our far-from-ideal world, President Trump can’t even acknowledge the problem, and the Democrats who call for immediate action seem to be running from the best solutions.

The IMF reiterates what economists have long understood: Enacting a carbon tax is “the single most powerful and efficient tool” because pricing mechanisms “make it costlier to emit greenhouse gases and allow businesses and individuals to choose how to conserve energy or switch to greener sources through a range of opportunities.” Politicians should favor choice and flexibility over central planning. “People and firms will identify which changes in behavior reduce emissions — for example, purchasing a more efficient refrigerator versus an electric car — at the lowest cost.”

The IMF wouldn’t actually have a vested interest in this, right? Somehow they think that it would increase consumer choice.

The IMF found that the average global price is a paltry $2 per ton of carbon dioxide, while the world requires a $75-per-ton global carbon tax by 2030 to keep warming below the 2-degree Celsius threshold scientists advise. Electricity prices would rise 70 percent on average — though only 53 percent in the United States — and gasoline prices 5 percent to 15 percent in most places.

But that’s the picture before one considers what the money raised by a carbon tax could do. If governments recycled the revenue back to low-income and vulnerable people, and cut economically inefficient taxes — such as income taxes — a $50-per-ton carbon tax would feel to the economy more like $20 per ton. The plan would help low-income households and place a higher burden on the upper-income bracket. There could also be money for essential research and development to aid the energy transition.

See? It would only feel like $20 a ton! Because the government would give money back! Which would make citizens more beholden to government.

So is this the plan that the Democratic presidential candidates have embraced? If only. Though former vice president Joe Biden and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke have cautiously acknowledged the importance of carbon pricing, they are far more specific in their ideas for spending lots of money. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently adopted a regulate-and-spend program. And Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would have the federal government establish its own utilities and build its own power-generation facilities, from scratch, according to, yes, a central plan.

Here’s my carbon tax plan: it will apply to all news organizations. It would immediately start at $75 per ton. Gathering and disseminating the news is a pretty CO2 intensive business, what with all the energy used, the travel with fossil fueled vehicles, and the killing of trees. They are just as bad as coal energy companies. Think the WP editorial board would be so hot to trot on carbon taxes then? Because they think that said taxes wouldn’t apply to themselves. The same WP post published this in September of this year

For example, while nearly half of adults say they would be willing to pay a $2 monthly tax on their electricity bills to help combat climate change, just over a quarter say they are willing to pay $10 extra each month. And while two-thirds support stricter fuel-efficiency standards for the nation’s cars and trucks, increases in the gas tax remain deeply unpopular.

That meshes with many other polls that show a majority aren’t willing to spend more than or even spend as much as $10 a month to “solve” Hotcoldwetdry.

I agree, though: Democrats should embrace carbon taxes. Go full hog on them. It’ll be just another nail in their coffin.