Exxon joins other companies by backing carbon tax proposal

Exxon Mobil announced in late June that they support the carbon tax proposal made by the Climate Leadership Council (CLC). Billed by the groups as a “conservative climate solution,” the CLC has conceived a plan that they say will fight climate change by taxing greenhouse gas emissions and paying the money back to taxpayers as an Alaska fund-style “climate dividend.” Over time the tax would rise, reducing demand for fossil fuels naturally in the free market, which would then shift more effectively and rapidly toward renewables. The proposal would also protect emitting companies from climate change lawsuits.

The CLC’s plan would begin with a tax of $40 per ton of CO2 produced. This would raise the price of gas by 36 cents per gallon and bring in more than $200 billion annually. The tax rate would rise gradually, and demand for fossil fuels would drop naturally as a result of market forces. The carbon dividend for the average family of four in the first year would be about $2,000. According to the CLC, this tax plan would reduce American carbon emissions regardless of whether or not the White House participates in the Paris Accord.

In any case, Exxon is in good company in terms of support for the carbon tax plan. Other endorsers include Stephen Hawking, the World Resources Institute, Laurene Powell Jobs (philanthropist and widow of Apple founder Steve Jobs), Steven Chu, the Obama-era energy secretary, the Nature Conservancy, Indian industrialist Ratan Tata, Clinton-era treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Michael R. Bloomberg. Most climate change scientists support the carbon tax strategy, and it is one of the most bipartisan solutions to the issue of climate change to date. Dividends from a carbon tax could support anything from universal basic income to tax cuts. The real question may be how to get lawmakers to support the relatively reasonable solution — one that will inure to the benefit of their constituents and the world, in spite of political resistance.

 

Source: Futurism

Photograph: © Unsplash

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