The Wesleyan Conference: Seeking a Meaningful Price on Carbon. By Andrew Revkin, NYTimes, 12/22/10. “One month ago, Wesleyan University hosted a weekend conference called ‘Pricing Carbon.’ It was a revival meeting of sorts, bringing together about 500 economists, campaigners, scientists, students and lawmakers seeking, despite recent setbacks, to apply the age-old ‘polluter pays’ principle to carbon. A prime goal of many attendees, from carbon campaigners Charles Komanoff and Peter Barnes to James Hansen of NASA, was to explore various strategies for creating a carbon tax that American consumers could accept.

“In reviewing many of the presentations, which are nearly all archived online, it’s clear that the death of a federal cap-and-trade system for curbing emissions is seen as a potential opening by proponents of a more direct approach to making polluting energy choices costly while buffering the impact on consumers. Many presenters acknowledged the daunting political hurdles in Washington, which were most vividly described by Representative Bob Inglis, a Republican of South Carolina who was defeated in his primary race largely, he said, over his stance on global warming and the need for a carbon tax.”

Energy Efficiency: The Jevons Paradox. By Charles Komanoff, Grist, 12/15/10. “One of the most penetrating critiques of energy-efficiency dogma you'll ever read is in this week's New Yorker [the 12/20/10 issue]. The Efficiency Dilemma, by David Owen, has this provocative subtitle: ‘If our machines use less energy, will we just use them more?’ Owen's answer is a resounding, iconoclastic, and probably correct Yes. Owen's thesis is that as a society becomes more energy-efficient, it becomes downright inefficient not to use more. The pursuit of efficiency is smart for individuals and businesses but a dead end for energy and climate policy. This idea isn't wholly original. It's known as the Jevons paradox, and it has a 150-year history of provoking bursts of discussion before being repressed from social consciousness.

“What Owen adds to the thread is considerable, however: a fine narrative arc; the conceptual feat of elevating the paradox from the micro level, where it is rebuttable, to the macro, where it is more robust; a compelling case study; and the courage to take on energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins…Best of all, Owen offers a way out: raising fuel prices via energy taxes… We can thank Owen not only for raising a critical, central question about energy efficiency, with potential ramifications for energy and climate policy, but for giving us a brief -- an eloquent and powerful one -- for a carbon tax.”

From Wesleyan: An Energized Call to Price Carbon. By Charles Komanoff, Carbon Tax Center, 11/22/10. “Over 500 people participated in the panels, workshops and strategy meetings, which began Friday evening and continued into Sunday afternoon. A majority were students, including 175 members of Students For a Just and Stable Future, a dynamic activist organization that began in Massachusetts and has spread across New England. Non-students were well represented too, with activists, policy professionals and concerned citizens from two dozen states and Canada. Opinion was unanimous -- among presenters and participants alike -- that the conference was a vital and worthwhile experience. And as of Sunday morning, Wesleyan’s IT staff had counted 33,000 hits to their site streaming conference video…

Veteran activist Ted Glick, policy director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, summed it up neatly: ‘There was a positive and energetic spirit throughout the conference. One reason for this was the conscious structuring of the conference to maximize opportunities for participation by all of those in attendance; e.g., by limiting the amount of time for speakers in plenaries and workshops, to allow for more time for questions and dialogue. It was also because the co-sponsoring groups and many of the people who participated believe that the demise of the cap and trade model for comprehensive climate legislation opens up the possibility that a much better approach to pricing carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions can now become the preferred national approach. And it was due to the positive combination of a cross-section of older activists, scholars, political leaders and heads of organizations interacting with large numbers of students and youth seriously interested in and passionate about the climate issue.’”

Taxing Carbon in the U.K. and the U.S.. By David Roberts, Grist, 10/22/10. “The U.K. may have just implemented a carbon tax… The Carbon Reduction Commitment, developed by the U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change, is a scheme whereby the nation's 5,000 or so largest commercial energy consumers will be charged a fee for carbon emissions. Originally it was intended to be revenue-neutral -- the money from the fee was to be returned to participants; businesses that increased energy efficiency the most would get proportionally more money back. In effect the scheme would have operated like a feebate. However, the department just abruptly announced that the revenue from the program won't be returned to participants after all: ‘Revenue raised from the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme will be used to support the public finances (including spending on the environment), rather than recycled to participants,’ the statement said…

“Some politically savvy folks I know are convinced that carbon pricing will return to American politics, despite the recent defeat of cap-and-trade, for a simple reason: the U.S. has a problem with its long-term deficit. (Michael Levi briefly references the argument here; see also Brookings here.) As efforts to deal with the long-term mismatch between revenue and spending get serious (or perhaps, if they get serious), there's going to be a pressing need for new sources of revenue. Nobody wants to raise income taxes. Nobody wants to raise payroll taxes. One of the only remaining options is some sort of consumption tax. A carbon tax fits the bill. It could raise almost unlimited revenue and while reducing environmental externalities and enhancing energy security. Perhaps the UK's example might get deficit hawks in the U.S. thinking.”

Chinese Policy Expert Argues for Carbon Tax. By Meng Si, ChinaDialogue, 10/15/10. “Jiang Kejun, senior researcher at [China’s] National Development Reform and Commission’s Energy Research Institute, [argues] that a carbon tax in China would be a blessing -- it would not increase the overall tax burden, and would even boost GDP growth… ‘The overall tax burden is very high, but a carbon tax could be revenue-neutral. This means increases are offset by reductions elsewhere, so that total revenue doesn’t change. If we collect 100 billion yuan (US$15 billion) in carbon taxes, we cut 100 billion of other taxes -- that’s easily done… China shouldn’t pay too much attention to the international talks as it responds to climate change. By 2030, China is going to be the leader of the world, whether it wants to be or not. By that point, China is sure to be ahead in technology as well as other areas. We need to make China a competitive nation and a carbon tax -- or taxes that are targeted at adjusting the economic structure -- are an effective route to doing that. We should implement them as soon as possible.”

‘Post-Partisan’ Energy Proposal Emphasizes Limited Subsidies, Small Carbon Tax. By Jenny Mandel, Greenwire, 10/14/10. “The United States should emphasize innovation to drive down the cost of clean energy technologies and curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report [Post-Partisan Power, PDF, 36 pp] released today by right- and left-leaning policy groups. The conservative American Enterprise Institute and liberal Brookings Institution and Breakthrough Institute say policies focused narrowly on driving down clean-energy costs by improving the technologies will win support from an electorate weary of ‘climate wars’ that have long polarized political debates.

“Co-authored by Steven Hayward of AEI, Mark Muro of Brookings, and Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, the report focuses on four ‘post-partisan’ proposals with price tags ranging from $15 billion to $25 billion per year: 1) The federal government should expand spending on energy science and education. The Energy Department's Office of Science should have its budget doubled to address scientific obstacles to energy technologies, while a slew of innovation institutes should channel up to $5 billion per year toward energy challenges, and energy education for students of all ages should be earmarked for at least $500 million per year. 2) The energy innovation system should be completely overhauled to focus on lining up with private-sector and Defense Department demands. 3) Federal subsidies should be overhauled to favor products that consistently fall in price. 4) Finally, energy investments should be made cost-neutral by some combination of pay-fors that could include phasing out existing subsidies, increasing oil and gas royalties, adding a fee for imported oil, placing a surcharge on electricity sales or imposing a modest carbon price. The carbon tax, the report says, in the range of $5 per ton, would cost consumers and businesses about a third as much as recent cap-and-trade legislation, according to the authors.”

Australia's Prime Minister Launches New Bid to Price Carbon. By Amy Coopes, AFP, 9/27/10. "Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard Monday launched a new push to charge for carbon pollution after being punished for a perceived failure to tackle environmental issues during recent elections. Gillard… said she would personally chair a cross-party committee to study ways of slashing greenhouse gases. 'As a government we have consistently said that in order to tackle climate change… we need to put a price on carbon,' Gillard told reporters. 'A carbon price will create an incentive to reduce emissions, drive investment in renewable and low emissions technologies, create certainty for business investment and begin the adjustment of our economy to a cleaner energy future.' Gillard, Australia's first female leader, said the committee would examine ways of penalizing carbon production, including an emission trading scheme, a carbon tax or a hybrid of both."

Australia's New Prime Minister Considers Carbon Tax. The Australian, September 20, 2010. "During the August election, Julia Gillard campaigned on the idea of a citizens' assembly that would help achieve a 'consensus' before deciding on a [climate] policy. After the election, but before forming government, Labor announced an alliance with the Greens and Ms Gillard agreed to a new climate change committee to report on the best options for imposing a price on carbon to cut emissions. Then, last week, Ms Gillard left open the prospect of backing a carbon tax, saying she would not play 'rule in, rule out' political games on how the government would impose a carbon price… Greens leader Bob Brown yesterday said membership of the Gillard government's new climate change committee was predicated on supporting a price on carbon."

Two New Converts to Taxing Carbon Are High-Profile, But Are They Truly Onboard? By Charles Komanoff, CarbonTax.org, September 1, 2010. "Last week, Bill Gates. This week, Bjorn Lomborg. With the world's #1 software magnate and the man whom the Guardian labeled 'the world's most high-profile climate change skeptic' both endorsing a carbon tax, is the tide of influential opinion on climate policy and carbon pricing turning? Lomborg... built a lucrative career lambasting climate-change advocates as scaremongers who would consign millions to early death by devoting resources to decarbonizing the world economy rather than fighting killer diseases like malaria. But in a new book to be published next month, the self-styled 'skeptical environmentalist' reportedly will call global warming 'one of the chief concerns facing the world today' and 'a challenge humanity must confront.' According to the Guardian, Lomborg will urge investing tens of billions of dollars a year to tackle climate change, with the funds to be raised through a carbon tax.

"Gates, on the other hand, has long worried about climate change. But in an interview in Technology Review last week, he added a new wrinkle: criticism of cap-and-trade... Gates: 'It's ideal to have a carbon tax, not just a price on carbon, which is this fuzzy term that includes cap-and-trade... with all sorts of markets and options and uncertainties about prices, and traders in the middle, and confusion about who initially gets the most advantage?... Gates' disparagement of cap-and-trade is striking. But neither his 2% carbon tax nor Lomborg's, which appears to resemble Gates' in magnitude and function -- funding energy R&D -- is going to end the reign of fossil fuels in the foreseeable future... They now need to see the next light: to have the necessary impact, a carbon tax can start modestly but must keep rising predictably. Fortunately, we have the example of British Columbia to show that an upward-trending carbon tax of the needed size can be politically popular if the revenue is returned to the public."

Midterm Advice for Congress: Tax Carbon Instead of Jobs. Commentary By Robert J. Shapiro and Elaine Kamarck, HuffPost, August 17, 2010. "It is now abundantly clear that the unemployment rate will largely determine the fate of the Democrats and their policies this fall and beyond. Public concerns over jobs and the economy overshadow everything else, to the point that just two years after the historic 2008 election, much of the administration's agenda could be in jeopardy... Democrats headed home for the mid-term elections need a new plan that will give voters powerful reasons to get to the polls and vote for them. We have one. Call it Plan B. It creates jobs, stimulates the economy, and addresses energy and climate concerns at the same time. Here's how it goes...

"First, in order to stimulate job creation under our current conditions, Congress and the President need to make it cheaper for American companies to hire new people. The most direct and effective way to do that is to sharply cut the employer's share of payroll taxes for new, net hires. That would cover all new employees in firms that expand their total workforce and their total payrolls. In the second year, the tax break would cover a smaller share of the employer's payroll tax contribution. If the economy recovers nicely and job creation returns to healthy levels, the break can be phased out. Workers who have worked hard for those two years will know how to do their jobs well, which will be enough for their companies to keep them on without the payroll tax break... Second, we need to stimulate demand so that companies feel secure enough to take on new workers. We can do that by cutting the employee's share of payroll taxes permanently, so that everyone has more money to spend for the foreseeable future.

"The large and obvious problem with this plan is the impact of lower payroll taxes on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, which can't spare a dime. So, the third part of the plan would keep those funds whole by putting a new fee on carbon big enough to make up the revenues lost by the payroll-tax cuts. In order to get the necessary economic stimulus from the payroll tax cuts, the economy-wide carbon fee should kick in one year after the payroll tax cuts. The carbon fee would be a powerful nudge for everyone to consume less energy, and a compelling incentive for companies to invest in developing more energy-efficient and climate friendly fuels and technologies.

"But our political leaders should not pretend that finally putting a price on carbon will not affect gas and electricity prices. In fact, Congress and the President should advertise that price increases are coming. Why? So that taxpayers have a good reason to make the changes in their offices and homes that will protect them from the higher gas and electricity prices. If Americans know that higher prices are coming, they can use the extra money in their pockets to make their homes and offices more energy efficient -- which also can help put thousands of people to work -- and buy cars and trucks that use less gas... It's time for Plan B. As Al Gore pointed out decades ago when he first called for action against green house gases, let's stop taxing jobs and start taxing carbon." Dr. Robert J. Shapiro, Chair of the U.S. Climate Task Force (CTF) and head of the economic advisory firm Sonecon, LLC , served as Under Secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration. Dr. Elaine C. Kamarck, former senior policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore, serves as CTF Co-Chair and lectures at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

The Day Has Come for a Carbon Tax. Editorial, Providence Journal, August 11, 2010. "The failed cap-and-trade legislation was complicated and strange -- the spawn of horse-trading among coal-producing states, manufacturing states, environmentalists and utilities (with a weak economy thrown in)... The abandonment of cap-and-trade legislation by both Democrats and Republicans does not spell the end of the quest to cut emissions of greenhouse gases in the U.S... Wouldn't it be better for businesses that make and use energy to know how this will happen as soon as possible, so that they can plan? The patchwork of state actions is already frustrating them... The chief advantage of a carbon tax over cap-and-trade is simplicity: It would not become a piñata for various interests. Its simplicity is also a disadvantage: It is a tax that everyone can see, even if some of the money goes back to consumers. Clearly, this is a solution for grownups. As an idea, the carbon tax has been around a long time. The day has come to embrace it."

And Now, We May Begin! Commentary by Charles Komanoff, CarbonTax.org, July 22, 2010. "And now, ve may begin? Readers of a certain age, and a certain literary bent, will recognize the words of Alexander Portnoy's psychiatrist, spoken at the close of Philip Roth's transgressive 1969 novel, Portnoy's Complaint. After lo these many years, they popped into my head today as I read that Senate Democrats had finally thrown in the towel on an energy bill that would have included a partial cap-and-trade provision for limiting carbon emissions from power plants. The bill, written by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, was touted by Washington insiders and some major environmental groups as this year's last hope for federal climate legislation. Yet it would have relied on carbon offsets and other dodges to postpone the day of reckoning with true, visible carbon emissions pricing - the cornerstone of meaningful climate policy...

"If you're in the climate movement, you recognize that fossil fuels' assault on Earth's climate is an ultimate form of oppression and injustice: of rich against poor, of the profligate against the frugal, of the present against the future. Ending this assault will require concerted action on many fronts; and it starts by internalizing the climate-damage costs of coal, oil and gas into their prices, so that the free ride for fossil fuels is ended and all of the alternatives, from energy efficiency, renewable energy and low-carbon fuels to conservation-based behavior and mindfulness toward energy consumption, may compete fairly and effectively. Political action to accomplish this must be done in bright sunlight, not in Beltway shadows. Cap-and-trade, let us hope, is dead. And now, we may begin!" Charles Komanoff is the cofounder and director of the Carbon Tax Center. Note his other recent commentary, Senate Climate Bill Dies -- Does the Environment Win?The Nation, July 28, 2010.

Put a Price on Carbon. Commentary by Martin Lagod and Jason Scott, Politico, July 26, 2010. "Now that the Senate has again decided to hold off on a comprehensive energy and climate bill, we look back at the debate with frustration -- but also with lessons learned for the future. The debate came down to one question: Will putting a price on carbon create -- or cost -- U.S. jobs? Sadly, political fears allowed myths about the legislation to overshadow the strong reality that comprehensive reform will create jobs and lead to economic growth. As we look to the next round, we want to set the record straight and offer a preview of the arguments that senators and advocates should make when the bill is picked up again. We are clean energy investors who come from different political parties. Our separate companies, together with our investment partners, have more than $10 billion to invest in clean energy technologies and projects across the United States. We're the people who will help create the American jobs that clean energy will bring...

"The path to creating more U.S. jobs is simple: Pass legislation that eliminates uncertainty and levels the playing field, and investors will fund projects that create good jobs here at home. Rules bring certainty, certainty spurs investment, and investment creates jobs. In the United States, the single most powerful policy tool to do that is a market-based price for carbon. Putting a market price on carbon would allow for a fair-competition approach with the fossil fuel industry, which receives about $12 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies each year, according to the Environmental Law Institute. Putting a market price on carbon would provide clear price signals to investors like us. Then, the U.S. innovation engine -- our most valuable asset -- would be turned loose, and capital and U.S. jobs would follow." Martin Lagod, a Republican, is a managing director and co-founder of Firelake Capital Management in Palo Alto, Calif. Jason Scott, a Democrat, is managing partner and co-founder of EKO Asset Management Partners in New York. Both serve on the board of the Clean Economy Network.

British Columbia's Carbon Tax Is Looking Like a Winner. Commentary by Stewart Elgie, Nic Rivers and Nancy Olewiler, Ottawa Citizen, July 27, 2010. "On July 1, 2008, B.C. embarked on an ambitious climate policy path; it brought in North America's first ever carbon tax shift. Though praised by environmentalists and economists, the measure was soon met by a host of concerns -- that it could increase overall taxes, decrease growth, and hurt low-income families. Some pundits labeled it political suicide, particularly after the resounding defeat of Stéphane Dion's "Green Shift" in the subsequent federal election. Two years later, it is possible to make a preliminary assessment of the tax, to see what lessons it may offer for the rest of the country, and the world. The result: B.C.'s policy experiment seems to be working...

"B.C.'s carbon tax has two parts. First, it puts a price on emissions of carbon -- the main greenhouse gas, which comes from burning oil, gas or coal. That cost is now $20/ton (it rises by $5 annually). Second, the revenues are all plowed back into tax cuts for individuals and business. What effects has this policy had so far? Although it is impossible to precisely identify the impacts of the tax shift in an economy with thousands of changing variables, initial results allay concerns that it would harm the economy. In fact, B.C.'s economic growth in 2009 -- the first full year the tax was in effect -- was higher than Canada's as a whole. Unemployment, although high because of wider economic events, is below the national average and does not appear to have jumped when the tax shift came in.

"Perhaps even more significantly, for the average taxpayer, the carbon tax shift has been an economic boon. During 2008 and 2009, the tax raised $846 million. However, the province tied the carbon tax to reductions in personal and corporate income taxes, as well as tax credits to offset impacts on low-income individuals. The total value of these offsetting cuts was nearly $1.1 billion over those two years, meaning a net tax reduction for B.C. taxpayers of about $230 million... The early results of B.C.'s carbon tax experiment are in, and they look positive. At a time when political leadership on climate change is sorely lacking, B.C. has stuck its neck out and done what most experts say is the right thing. Let's hope other governments -- in Ottawa, Washington and around the world -- are watching." Stewart Elgie is a professor of environmental law and economics at University of Ottawa. Nic Rivers is an economist and Trudeau Scholar at Simon Fraser University. Nancy Olewiler is a professor and director of the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. All are members of Sustainable Prosperity.

Spilled Oil. Commentary by Hendrik Hertzberg, NewYorker, June 28, 2010 issue. “For the young Presidency of Barack Obama, and for the nation, this hellish summer of discontent started in balmy spring, on the evening of April 20th, forty miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. At first, after the explosion aboard the giant oil rig Deepwater Horizon, the rig’s operator, BP, estimated the resulting flow at 1,000 barrels a day... By May 17th -- the day that the chief executive officer of BP predicted that ‘the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest’ -- it was obvious that what was unfolding was the single biggest environmental catastrophe in the history of the United States. By June 15th, when President Obama commandeered the networks for his first address to the nation from the Oval Office, the per-day estimate had been ratcheted up to 60,000 barrels -- a thousand every 24 minutes. The surface muck was fouling Florida beaches and Louisiana wetlands, leaving doomed seabirds shrouded in black; just as ominous, huge subsurface blobs were leaching oxygen from the depths, threatening to suffocate an entire ocean ecosystem...

“Against this background, Obama’s speech was bound to feel unequal to the occasion. What ‘people’ wanted to hear was an answer to Malia Obama’s now famous question -- ‘Did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’ -- and the answer they wanted to hear was yes, or, failing that, real soon. This the President could not provide. Plugging the hole is beyond his power, or, apparently, anyone else’s... The President was right, of course, that the ultimate cause of the Gulf disaster is out-of-control consumption of a dwindling resource that must be extracted in increasingly dangerous ways. The most effective, most efficient way to rein in that consumption and make clean energy price-competitive would be to slap a heavy tax on carbon. Ideally, much of the revenue would be rebated to the public as a cut in the payroll tax, since it makes more sense to tax things we want to discourage, such as oil use, than things we want to encourage, such as work.”

A Last Chance for Cap and Trade. Commentary by Bryan Walsh, Time, May 13, 2010. "On Wednesday, May 13, when Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman unveiled the American Power Act [PDF, Summary, 21 pp] cap and trade reached its apogee. It also may have reached its end... The offshore provisions were just one reason that many deeper-green environmental groups came out against the bill... Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, argued that the bill was too weak to meet the demands of climate science and contained too many giveaways for the fossil-fuel industry... Most major environmental groups came out in support of the bill, however, saying the legislation represented the best chance to put the country on a low-carbon path and that Kerry and Lieberman should be credited for attempting to pass legislation in such a toxic political environment... But the kind of support the bill will need to become law -- from Republicans -- was nowhere to be seen... Kerry has said the bill could be the last, best chance for cap and trade -- but right now, it looks like it might just be the last."

James Hansen Proposes 'Climate Stewardship Act'. By James Handley, CarbonTax.org, April 25, 2010. "'Our grandchildren will blame us if we destroy the remarkable planet that we inherited,' warned renowned climate scientist James Hansen on April 25 at the 40th anniversary celebration of Earth Day on the National Mall in Washington, DC... We live in a 'false economy' of cheap fossil fuels whose prices don't reflect their true costs to society, the environment and future generations. 'As long as coal is so cheap that low-carbon energy can't compete, we will not make the transition to a clean-energy future,' Dr. Hansen said. Dr. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke on this policy-related topic today as a private citizen. He called on the public and lawmakers to reject the 'smoke and mirrors' of energy bills now before Congress, which rely on 'cap-and-trade' and 'offsets'...

"His proposal calls for a 'simple, honest' carbon fee, collected from fossil-fuel companies upon the first sale at the mine, wellhead or port of entry. The money collected via this fee would be distributed to the public as a monthly 'dividend' or 'green check.' Distributing all of the revenue equitably to households will ensure that families can afford the energy they need during the transition to a clean energy future, and it should help win public support for a rising carbon fee. Dr. Hansen's proposal was produced after months of discussion with religious leaders, the Carbon Tax Center, Citizens Climate Lobby and the Price Carbon Campaign. It incorporates key elements of bills proposed by Congressmen John Larson (D-Conn) and Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), whom Dr. Hansen calls on to join forces for the benefit of American people in building an effective, bipartisan 'Climate Stewardship Act.'"

China Considers Carbon Tax. By Fu Jing, China Daily, May 10, 2010. "China may start levying a carbon tax and further boost prices of fossil fuel for the next five years as a crucial incentive to cut greenhouse gas emissions and help realize green targets, a government-affiliated expert forecast. 'We expect China will start to levy various taxes only if they are helpful in mitigating greenhouse emissions and developing a low-carbon economy,' Jiang Kejun, a senior researcher with the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Sunday. 'I think a carbon tax is likely to be levied during the 12th Five-year plan (2011-15) period,' said Jiang. The National Development and Reform Commission is a Cabinet department responsible for the country's mid- and long-term development plan. Apart from a carbon tax, Jiang said the government may begin to levy environmental and resource taxes. Meanwhile, China will greatly boost subsidies to support low-carbon technology research and development. At a weekend climate change forum organized by the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, Jiang told China Daily that the government is serious about realizing its target of cutting carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels and the government will implement 'tougher measures' in the coming five years to realize the green goal."

Obama's Second Chance on the Predominant Moral Issue of This Century. Commentary by James Hansen, HuffPost, April 5, 2010. "President Obama, finally, took a get-involved get-tough approach to negotiations on health care legislation and the arms control treaty with Russia -- with success. Could this be the turn-around for what might still be a great presidency? The predominant moral issue of the 21st century, almost surely, will be climate change... Our fossil fuel addiction, if unabated, threatens our children and grandchildren, and most species on the planet...

The fundamental requirement for solving our fossil fuel addiction and moving to a clean energy future is a rising price on carbon emissions. Otherwise, if we refuse to make fossil fuels pay for their damage to human health, the environment, and our children's future, fossil fuels will remain the cheapest energy and we will squeeze every drop from tar sands, oil shale, pristine lands, and offshore areas. An essential corollary to the rising carbon price is 100% redistribution of collected fees to the public -- otherwise the public will never allow the fee to be high enough to affect lifestyles and energy choices. The fee must be collected from fossil fuel companies across-the-board at the mine, wellhead, or port of entry. Revenues should be divided equally among all legal adult residents, with half-shares for children up to two per family, distributed monthly as a 'green check'. Part of the revenue could be used to reduce taxes, provided the tax reduction is transparent and verifiable. The rising carbon price will affect almost everything. Congressman John Larson defined an appropriate rising fee. $15 per ton of carbon dioxide the first year and $10 more per ton each year. Economic modeling shows that carbon emissions would decline 30% by 2020. The annual dividend then would be $2000-3000 per legal adult resident, $6000-9000 per family with two or more children. About 60% of the public would receive more in the green check than they pay in added energy costs. People will set their net cost or gain via their energy and other consumer choices...

"The National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC) is working with the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), the Price Carbon Campaign (PCC), and economists at the Carbon Tax Center (CTC) to help promote this honest and effective energy and climate policy. The public, if well-informed, can be expected to support this policy. But so far Congress has been steamrolled by special interests... Can the cacophony of special interests be overcome? There is one way: the president must get involved. He must explain the situation to the public and use his bully pulpit to persuade Congress to do what is right for the nation and future generations. He must explain that a rising carbon price is needed to phase out our fossil fuel addiction. The dividend will provide the public the means to move to a clean energy future, stimulating the economy... Perhaps posterity may remember that Obama reduced the number of nuclear-tipped missiles, or that he added 10% of Americans to the health care rolls. But if he dreams of being a great president, he needs to take on the great moral challenge of our century." Dr. James Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, but he writes on this policy-related topic as a private citizen.

Building a Green Economy. Commentary by Paul Krugman, NYTimesMag, April 11, 2010. "The debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change -- one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them -- can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades. In what follows, I will offer a brief survey of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change. I'll try to lay out the areas of broad agreement as well as those that remain in major dispute. First, though, a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection... [End of article] We know how to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. We have a good sense of the costs -- and they're manageable. All we need now is the political will."