A number of recent letters to the editor focus on President Joe Biden’s climate efforts (which most environmental groups see as prodigious). We must ask what else, if anything, can be done. It makes sense to ask the experts. They conclude that a carbon price is most effective, more so than population control, afforestation, electric vehicle subsidies, efficiency and carbon capture alone.
When a “dumping fee” is assigned to every ton of carbon burned, its price will naturally rise, and if people receive these fees as a rebate, they will be attracted to less expensive, low-carbon products. Investments will shift as well.
How will emission reductions be affected? Such a policy would cut carbon about as well as the Inflation Reduction Act. Each can reduce carbon by about 10 percent, and together, we can hit our goal of 50 percent cuts by 2030.
Note that citizens are protected (by the rebate) from higher prices, and no outlay from the federal government is involved. We are putting the costs on Big Carbon, where they belong — after its deceptions and cost shifting have put us in the soup.