#Carbon footprint quiz pro

The best label is a judgement call a variety of terms will appear here, but they all refer to the same thing. Some would advocate referring not to carbon, but to climate pollution or some other term for greenhouse gas emissions. Because imposing a new tax is potentially politically fraught, some people advocate calling a carbon pricing policy something besides a tax, such as a fee, levy, charge (PDF), or adder. “Tax” is the term economists apply to most revenue instruments. A cap-and-trade or hybrid program can also impose a price on carbon emissions, but here we are focusing on the design of policy that sets a carbon price rather than an emissions quantity, recognizing that the various approaches can be designed to be similar in practice. This is shorthand the tax is based on tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and might cover non-CO2 greenhouse gases (such as methane, nitrous oxide, and certain industrial gases) as well, for example at a rate weighted by the global warming potential of each gas relative to CO2. Here we’re talking about a policy that economists typically call a carbon tax. Does it include measures to reduce effects on U.S.

Does it give credits or rebates for certain activities?ġ1. Does it allow offsets (alternatives to paying a fee)?ġ0. Does it constrain state-level policies?ĩ. Does it change other Federal climate and energy policies, and if so how?Ĩ. What’s the initial price and how does it change over time?ħ. What greenhouse gas (GHG) sources and gases does the policy cover?ģ. What is the name of the carbon pricing policy?Ģ. Click on a question below to jump to its discussion:ġ. The hyperlinks will take you to further reading, but are not necessarily endorsements.

The goal here is to elucidate at a high level the options for carbon pricing policy design, not to build the case for a carbon price itself or quantify the benefits or costs of specific approaches.

To inform your own thoughts on how a price on carbon should work, imagine you are a policymaker and think through how you would address each of the following questions.

#Carbon footprint quiz pro

Each question has several potential answers with their own considerations, pro and con (recognizing that one person’s pro can be another person’s con). What follows are eleven essential design questions to consider when designing a carbon charge. How, for example, would the policy balance giving certainty to firms that make long-term investments, but still allow for updates as information, technology, and outcomes evolve? Any carbon levy legislation would have to address a number of key design decisions-and serious tradeoffs arise across nearly all of them. When it comes to developing an actual policy, a host of devilish details arise. Here we focus on one way to price carbon: through a tax or fee. To be sure, a price on carbon is necessarily one part of a broader climate policy portfolio that includes diplomatic engagement, research, investments in adapting to a changing climate, assistance for vulnerable populations, and other aspects of the challenge.īut because market forces can be powerful and efficient agents for change, a policy to price carbon is arguably an indispensable part of the solution. Economists widely advocate establishing a price on carbon as a central means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the risks of global climatic disruption and ocean acidification.