I thought the article in the url below was worth bringing to your attention (it is an open letter), simply because of the people who have signed-onto it:
"Editor's note: This statement is signed by 27 Nobel economic laureates, all four living former chairs of the Federal Reserve, 15 former chairmen of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, and two former Treasury secretaries."
That is quite a group – and, if they can agree on anything, there is hope that the government can, one day, return to the job of legislating. The article opens with this statement:
"Global climate change is a serious problem calling for immediate national action. Guided by sound economic principles, we are united in the following policy recommendations."
It then goes on to list five policies. Here is the first line of each statement:
I. "A carbon tax offers the most cost-effective lever to reduce carbon emissions at the scale and speed that is necessary."
II. "A carbon tax should increase every year until emissions reductions goals are met and be revenue neutral to avoid debates over the size of government."
III. "A sufficiently robust and gradually rising carbon tax will replace the need for various carbon regulations that are less efficient."
IV. "To prevent carbon leakage and to protect U.S. competitiveness, a border carbon adjustment system should be established."
V. "To maximize the fairness and political viability of a rising carbon tax, all the revenue should be returned directly to U.S. citizens through equal lump-sum rebates."
There are more details to each policy in the article itself, but this is interesting stuff from an impressive group! A more critical response appears in the article in the second url below:
"A carbon tax is not a miracle solution. There aren't any. We will be living with some amount of climate change due to the highly uncertain effects of rising CO2 levels for the foreseeable future. The difference between a happy and unhappy outcome for humanity will come down to our ability to maintain economic progress in the face of our extraordinarily daunting debt challenges."
Perhaps, but this does not discount the fact that a carbon tax is widely acknowledged to be the best tool we have to make rapid progress on reducing the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere.
Take care
David
David Chandler
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Economists' Statement on Carbon Dividends
Economists' Statement on Carbon Dividends
January 17, 2019
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
A13
https://www.wsj.com/articles/economists-statement-on-carbon-dividends-11547682910
Big Names Bake a Climate Pie in the Sky
Big Names Bake a Climate Pie in the Sky
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
January 19-20, 2019
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
A13
