homer.JPG

This May 2014 file photo shows the Homer City Generating Station, a coal-fired plant in Homer City, Pa.

(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

By Mark Reynolds and Eric Means

This month, energy experts from the United States, China, and 13 other nations released a report to the United Nations called "Pathways to Deep Decarbonization" offering practical paths for transitioning their countries away from fossil fuels. This is a response to the message relentlessly championed by the world's climate scientists: Stop burning things that release greenhouse gases by transitioning quickly to clean energy and low-carbon modes of transportation. If you have to burn stuff, capture and store the carbon.

Left unspecified is how to pay for this transition, but we have a suggestion. We'll get to that shortly, but first let's recap the reasons we need to change the "business as usual" scenario.

Earlier this spring, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report detailing the impact of climate change both now and in the future. The phrase "wake-up call" has been used so often with regard to climate change that it has lost all meaning. Nevertheless, the IPCC's previous report about impact was sobering:

* Farmers may not be able to grow enough food to feed a growing population.

* Climate change will continue to increase the severity of storms, droughts, floods and wildfires.

* By century's end, sea-level rise could displace hundreds of millions of people.

* Reducing poverty will be much more difficult.

* Food and water shortages, along with migrating populations, will destabilize many nations.

To avoid worst-case scenarios, the world's leading scientists tell us we must contain the increase in warming to 2 degrees Celsius. The IPCC warns that on our current trajectory, we're looking at 4-5C warming, way beyond any ability our civilization has to manage or adapt.

Staying under 2C requires the world to remain within a "carbon budget" of one trillion tons of carbon dioxide emitted since the Industrial Revolution began. More than half that budget has been spent, and corporations and nations control reserves of fossil fuels amounting to five times the amount of CO2 we can safely burn. This is one budget we cannot afford to bust, yet we're on track to do just that within two or three decades.

Which brings us back to the report to the UN on how to do this. The authors pull no punches, acknowledging each country's challenges to staying below 2C. But miracle technologies are not required, and they emphasize that no nation's economy is torpedoed by their plans.

None of this will happen quickly enough, however, so long as fossil fuels remain the cheaper option. Simple economics dictates that the market will gravitate toward the lowest cost. To fix this problem, there's a simple solution: Tax carbon.

If you're like most Americans, you're immediate reaction is to say "No way!" to any new tax. Suppress that impulse for a moment while we give you the other part of the equation: Take the revenue from that carbon tax and refund it equally to all households.

By giving carbon tax revenue back to the public, individuals will have the extra income to offset additional energy costs arising from the tax. Done this way, a carbon tax isn't about creating economic hardship, but instead correcting the distortion in the marketplace that gives fossil fuels a competitive advantage.

A number of conservatives – Mitt Romney economic adviser Greg Mankiw, Ronald Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz – embrace the revenue-neutral carbon tax as the best solution on climate change.

Republicans in Congress currently balk at President Obama's efforts to cut carbon through new regulations. They see it as an expansion of government, which they philosophically oppose, and are doing what they can to thwart the president's initiative. Chances of avoiding new regulations would improve, though, if Congress presented Obama with the market-based solution of a carbon tax that recycles revenue back into the economy.

The new UN report tells us technology can bail us out of certain climate catastrophe. To give it a fighting chance, let's tax carbon and refund all revenue to households.

Mark Reynolds is executive director of Citizen's Climate Lobby, and Eric Means is a member of the Portland chapter of Citizen's Climate Lobby.