Archive of Quotes of Note

I-732 is revenue neutral, to the best of anyone’s ability to forecast it.”

Does I-732 Really Have a “Budget Hole”?, Sightline Institute report on the I-732 Washington State carbon tax ballot initiative, Aug. 2.

Carbon and other greenhouse gases should be taxed at a rate high enough to spur the transition away from fossil fuels consistent with the temperature goals agreed to in Paris in 2015.”

Resolution by insurgent Democratic Party platform committee members led by Bill McKibben that was narrowly defeated in St. Louis in late June.

Putting a price on carbon pollution is by far the most powerful and efficient way to reduce emissions”

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, quoted by New York Times reporter Coral Davenport in Carbon Pricing Becomes a Cause for the World Bank and I.M.F., April 23.

[S]ome leading [Canadian] Conservatives are rethinking the party’s stance. They are coming to the conclusion that it is time to wave the white flag and make peace with the concept of carbon pricing.”

Chantal Hebert, Toronto Star national affairs columnist, in Conservatives are rethinking the party’s stance on carbon pricing, March 8.

If it cost more to pollute, Americans would pollute less.”

From a Washington Post editorial, Take Mr. Obama’s Oil Fee Proposal Seriously, Feb. 7.

Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate? The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.”

Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit (the Goddard Institute for Space Studies), in 2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say, NY Times, Jan. 21.

Putting a solid price on carbon pollution, as Carbon Washington’s I-732 does, would massively accelerate the shift to clean energy.”

Jigar Shah, co-founder and president of Generate Capital and founding CEO of SunEdison, in Duncan Clauson, Endorsement From Jigar Shah, as reported by Carbon Washington, Jan. 5.

The evidence suggests that voters are more open to carbon taxation than the present Republican position that climate change is no big deal and requires little federal response.”

Niskanen Institute president Jerry Taylor, in “Ed Gillespie Is Dead-Wrong About Carbon Taxes,” Nov. 2.

It is just the right moment to introduce carbon taxes.”

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, quoted in Global Post, Oct. 7.

This is humanity as a geologic force, We’re not a subtle influence on the climate system – we are really hitting it with a hammer.”

Carnegie Institution for Science researcher Ken Caldeira, commenting on a new study he co-authored, reported in Study Predicts Antarctica Ice Melt if All Fossil Fuels Are Burned, by Justin Gillis, NY Times, Sept. 12.

[A] potential joint U.S.-China carbon tax is more important than whatever happens at the United Nations climate talks in Paris.”

Climate scientist James Hansen, quoted in “The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here,” Rolling Stone, August 5.

It is a mystery why the Republican Party drives environmental policy away from using Adam Smith’s invisible hand.”

Gilbert E. Metcalf, Tufts University economist specializing in energy and the environment. U.S. Leaves the Markets Out in the Fight Against Carbon Emissions, NY Times, July 1.

[B]y far the biggest way countries reduce the [market] price of energy is by not taxing it enough to account for the damage that burning fossil fuels causes to human health and to the climate.”

The High Cost of Dirty Fuels, NY Times editorial, May 21, 2015.

A carbon tax has gone from a policy that only an economist could love to #carbontax.”

Adele Morris, policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution, in Carbon tax could replace Obama’s climate rules, Democrat says, EnergyWire, April 23.

The fact that cap-and-trade schemes are incredibly opaque is considered a feature, not a bug.”

Margaret Wente, conservative columnist, Toronto Globe and Mail (April 7).

[A] pivotal moment is approaching in Washington, one in which overarching tax reform actually might take place. Such a moment could provide political cover for [a revenue-neutral carbon] tax.”

Jeffrey Ball, Facing the Truth About Climate Change, The New Republic, Feb. 4.

We overuse dirty fuels – spending more on them than we would if their full cost was reflected in prices. This is not some kind of government planning argument – it is the straightforward logic of the market: that which is not paid for is overused.”

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers, in Why Now is the Right Time for a U.S. Carbon Tax, Scholars Strategy Network, Jan. 2015. Summers published a close copy of that post as an op-ed in the Washington Post, Oil’s swoon creates the opening for a carbon tax, on Jan. 4.

‘We were told it would destroy the economy and we’d never get elected again, but we’ve won two elections since [our carbon tax] was enacted’ five years ago, according to Mary Polak [British Columbia’s] Minister of Environment. ‘It’s the revenue neutrality that really makes it work. We collected C$1.2 billion last year and a little bit more was returned.’ “

Journalist James Fahn, in At Climate Talks in Lima, Only the Arguing Remains the Same (a post embedded in Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog, Dec. 14).

For Republicans, the issue of climate change, like immigration and same-sex marriage, is one that potential candidates and their advisers are starting to grapple with as they try to carve a path to the presidency, while winning support from a new generation of more diverse voters.”

NY Times, In Climate Deal With China, Obama May Set 2016 Theme, by Coral Davenport, Nov. 12.

It’s much more likely that countries could agree on a carbon price than that they could agree on a system of caps that differs like [the White House – EPA plan] does among states.”

Harvard economist Dale Jorgenson, in Time To Tax Carbon, Harvard magazine, Sept-Oct 2014.