China Says It May Implement a Carbon Tax (1057479)

China may implement a (modest) carbon tax:

Taxing Carbon, by Vikas Bajaj, NY Times: Long considered the biggest holdout in climate change negotiations, China said this week that the country would implement new taxes designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Officials in Beijing provided few details, but a report?by the state-owned Xinhua news service suggested that the government is working on a relatively modest plan. ...

The Xinhua report ... did not say how big a tax the country would impose, but it pointed to a three-year-old proposal by government experts that would have levied a 10-yuan ($1.60) per ton tax on carbon in 2012 and raised it to 50-yuan ($8) a ton by 2020. Those prices are far below the $80 (500-yuan) a ton that some experts have suggested would be needed to achieve ?climate stability,? and which would raise the cost of gasoline by about 70 American cents a gallon.

China?s plan will not make a serious dent in global warming, though the tax may still have some beneficial impact within the country, where air pollution is a serious problem. ...

Meanwhile, in the U.S., many members of Congress find the idea of carbon taxes totally anathema and think such taxes would wreck the economy. They might, however, want to consider a?proposal promoted by Mr. Hansen?that would take the money collected from carbon taxes ? or carbon fees as he prefers to call them ? and rebate it in full to individuals. That would help consumers pay for more expensive electricity and gasoline, while giving them an incentive to cut their use of energy and fossil fuels. It?s an elegant way to limit damage to the economy while giving people incentives to do what is right for the planet.

Contrary to what "many members of Congress" (i.e. many Republicans) claim, eliminating a market failure through a carbon tax moves the economy closer to the optimal growth path rather than further from it.

Posted by Mark Thoma on Wednesday, February 20, 2013 at 05:43 PM in China, Economics, Environment, Market Failure?| Permalink? Comments?(14)

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