Conservative curbs on climate change

One sad thing about the climate change debate is that it is politically one sided. Most conservative thinkers have spend so long burying their heads in the sand that they don’t actually have any practical effective solutions. Which means that there are carbon control strategies that have not been presented. So here’s a little five point plan that uses market forces and tax cuts to achieve reductions in American CO2 emissions. It is written by an American, for an American, so the applicability to small nations may be poor.

First of all, if any progress is to be made, carbon needs to have a price. There are two main mechanisms for pricing carbon- a carbon tax, and a cap and trade system. The trouble with cap and trade is that it generally requires lots of bureaucratic oversight, and can easily be used into a special interest pork distribution network. So I reckon a carbon tax is probably the way to go, and we can always cut taxes in other areas to make sure that it remains revenue-neutral.

I reckon that the carbon tax rate should be linked to the atmospheric concentration of CO2. After all, it is atmospheric concentration, and not emission, that actually traps heat in the atmosphere. So a rate of, say, 50 cents per tonne for each ppm over 300 would be a reasonable sort of level. If we ever get back down to pre-industrial levels, the tax goes away, and the worse we alter the atmosphere, the more expensive emission becomes.

Obviously, this tax is going to cause a price increase for just about everything, so we need to cut taxes to respond. So tax cuts are point 2 So for point 2a, we cut income taxes to give everyone about $1000 bucks less tax to pay, so that they can afford the basics.

Corporations need tax relief too, but here we can be a bit creative. If we tie our corporate tax cut to basic low carbon behavior, then companies can compete to find the most efficient way to earn themselves a tax break. One way to do this is to drop the corporate income tax by 1% for every 10% of a company’s workforce that commute and works without using motorized transport. This would give companies a great incentive to restructure their work environments to reduce commuting, which causes a large portion of our transport emissions. We can give a half sized discount to workers who use only public transport, in order to smooth the transition.

For 2c, we can probably halve highway spending by cutting out pork and future plans for roads that won’t be needed in a tax environment where companies are trying to reduce communing. If we halve the highway spending, then we can halve the transport portion gasoline tax as well, which will help protect consumers from a early jolt in the gasoline price.

Of course, if a carbon tax is to work by making low carbon generation economically preferable, then we need to actually be able to build and bring that generation online in a timely fashion. So, point three is a reduction in regulations for infrastructure. One way to do this is to require state/local governments and NIMBYs to pay the carbon cost for delay sand cancellations of low carbon generating facilities. This may not prevent folks like the Kennedys from stalling wind farms, but at least they would have to fork out the carbon cost that those windmills would prevent.

Allowing planning exemption for energy efficient housing would also help companies build housing to get their commuting tax cut. And it would make it easier for builders of such housing to break into housing markets where regulations prevent effective competition.

Point 4 is that climate change is actually going to harm some people, so some of the remaining carbon tax revenue could be used to compensation, provided that a way can be found to prevent rorting.

And finally (5), imports of goods and services from economies with a lower carbon cost would have to be taxed the difference, in order to prevent lenient producers from obtaining an unfair advantage.

So, as you can see, tax cuts and emission reduction are not antithetical. Basic conservative principles of reducing oversight and regulation, providing tax incentives, and letting business solve its own problems can be applied to reducing global warming. Proscriptive bans are not required, and the left will have to find another reason to justify draconian world government by faceless UN apparatchiks.