Carbon Fee and Dividend - People-centered emissions reduction by joseph

The fundamental structure of this proposal sounds fine and I appreciate the simplicity. But there's the "devil in the details" that makes it hard for us to implement. Below are the issues that initially come to mind: 1. There are no dollar signs in this proposal so it is so unspecific as to be hard to evaluate. In particular, you give - no cost for a ton of carbon, - no estimate of how this would raise consumer costs (of say a gallon of gas) and - no dollar amount for the "dividend" that each household would get. You do say it would "escalate" so tell us: In what year does it start at what dollar amounts for the above 3 quantities? How much does it escalate per year? Is there an ending year, or does it continue to escalate forever? Now if the dollar amounts are low, they won't provide much incentive, but if the dollar amounts are high, they are unlikely to pass legislation so its tricky to find that "middle ground" because, in the current US legislative climate, there probably is none. (but I hope I am wrong!) 2 "as the fee escalates and the dividend provides consumers with an incentive to buy the more affordable, clean energy" The fee charged to the producers for carbon SHOULD increase prices to the consumer and if that occurs, I agree that there will be an incentive for the consumer to switch to lower cost, non-carbon energy, or better yet, use less energy! But the dividend, as I understand your proposal, does NOT incentivize the consumer to buy carbon free energy. Its just money and the consumer can do what they want with it, which might simply be, keep buying from the same carbon-rich energy sources that they're use to. At the very least, the quote above is misleading because the dividend does not provide the claimed incentive. 3. "A WTO-safe border adjustment for nation without a similar policy would be instituted to ensure a level playing field for American businesses." Please explain this issue and how it would work. Say, for instance, USA signed on to the agreement but Mexico did not, and pollution from Mexico came over the border to the US. (or it just help melt the ice, raising ocean levels). What would the WTO do to Mexico? Would Mexico care? Most importantly, the WTO is concerned with short term benefits to multinational corporations, not long term benefits to the entire population of the planet, so why would they attempt rules that would undermine the core values of the organization? It sounds like these kinds of rules are better suited to the charter of the UN, but then again the UN might not have the power to enforce the rules, so we have a real problem here (I don't just mean for this proposal, I mean, in general, this kind of thing is really difficult to get enacted and enforced.) 4. As the proposal reads, each household gets the same 'dividend'. That means regardless of the amount of carbon they actually consume? Say you have a married couple and they decide to live in separate households, at least as declared to the organziation that hands out the dividends. That means that they get twice as much money as they did when they had only one household, right? Your proposal encourages divorce? If you changed it to 'dividend per person' then you'd reward poor teenage mothers for having babies? (which would increase the carbon pollution just by adding another person)

The proposed numbers are a starting price of $15/ton of CO2 emissions for carbon-emitting fuels, in the first year, with the fee escalating by an additional $10 every year after that. 100% of the revenue is returned to households, because it is not households that the corrective tax is supposed to make pay more, but the enterprises that choose to develop and sell the increasingly expensive product. As soon as the steadily increasing cost is built into the carbon fuels sector, major private capital will flow to low-carbon resources, with a tipping point (after which clean energy is reliably and irreversibly cheaper) coming between 5 and 10 years after implementation. Dr. Hansen is a supporter of this fee and dividend plan, as outlined by Citizens Climate Lobby. (See page 7) On the issue of a WTO-safe border adjustment, the WTO would have nothing to do with implementing or enforcing the fee and dividend policy. The WTO question regards whether or not a tax policy applied at the border falls into the category of a protectionist tariff, which are barred under WTO rules. It is decidedly more difficult to implement any policy that would lead to a WTO challenge. So the border adjustment in the fee and dividend plan is designed to be specifically applicable only to nations that implement no comparable policy, and only to ensure they are not participating in the domestic market in violation of laws domestic enterprises must follow. The border adjustment is not applied if the country in question has a similar policy in place for pricing carbon. The dividend would be paid out in equal shares to every household in the country, on a monthly basis, with up to two full adult shares per household and up to two half shares per child.

Please follow the fee and dividend proposal as one component of the Cycling Carbon plan