It reshaped how the world thought about climate change. But its prized trait—bloodless economic efficiency—won it few friends on the right or left

Carbon Tax, Beloved Policy to Fix Climate Change, Is Dead at 47

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2021-07-21 19:30:02

It reshaped how the world thought about climate change. But its prized trait—bloodless economic efficiency—won it few friends on the right or left.

The American carbon tax, an alluringly simple policy once hailed by environmentalists, scholars, and politicians as a cure-all for climate change that, for all its elegance in economic models, could not overcome its enduring unpopularity with the American public, died last month at its home in Washington, D.C. It was 47.

The carbon tax aimed to reduce carbon-dioxide pollution—which heats the air, acidifies the ocean, and causes climate change—by applying a commonsense idea: If you don’t want people to do something, charge them money for it. The tax would have levied a fee—ranging from $5 to, in some estimates, more than $150—on every ton of carbon released into the atmosphere. Such a cost would have percolated through the economy, raising gasoline and jet-fuel prices, closing coal-fired power plants, and encouraging consumers and companies to adopt cleaner forms of energy.

It was a straightforward, perhaps even beautiful, idea—a bid to apply the economic precepts of the 19th century to one of the great problems of the 21st. Its poise was matched by its elite support. The carbon tax won acclaim from self-described socialists and red-blooded libertarians, Democratic senators and Republican secretaries of state, Elon Musk and Janet Yellen.

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