I am a huge New York Times’ fan. I have been reading this newspaper for at least a decade. This is why I was particularly shocked when their management decided to stop their Green blog. Despite this, they keep on publishing great articles.
Like their editorial on why President Obama has to say no the Keystone Pipeline (another great opinion piece if you ask me) or Thomas Friedman’s articles. His latest one was just fantastic.
Friedman explains why we really need a carbon tax as it could solve literally all our main problems. The article also provides an interesting historical outlook.
If a $25 tax per tonne of carbon were enacted, the collected money would amount to $125 billion per year. With this money, a lot could be done.
The editorialist believes that 45 percent of the tax could go to pay down the deficit and 45 percent would enable to slash both corporate and income taxes. The ten last percent would reduce the burden on low income households.
Such a huge move would give a significant boost to energy efficiency and cleantech. Grid parity for solar and other renewables would take place even more rapidly and the US energy transition would be much faster.
The historical outlook is as usual with Friedman very interesting. Did you know that a carbon tax was first thought of as early as 1992 ?
Ideas of environmental (or Pigovian) taxes are one century old, and were first conceptualized in the early 20th century by the British economist Arthur Pigou.
Please read the editorial, it is an absolute must.
Thomas L Friedman : It’s Lose-Lose vs. Win-Win-Win-Win-Win