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This page, featuring authors, writers and “pundits” (newspaper and magazine columnists, principally), is one of half-a-dozen compiling expressions of support for carbon taxes (or more targeted taxes, e.g., on gasoline) by notable individuals and organizations. To access other pages with different supporter categories, click on the Progress link on the navigation bar and move to the desired category.

New York Times columnists

Many of the Times’ regular editorial columnists have supported a carbon tax. See Writers & Pundits section of our Archived Supporters page for pro-carbon tax expressions by former Times columnists.

David Brooks

“Raise taxes on carbon emissions,” urged The Times’ most right-leaning columnist, on Nov. 30, 2006 (Waiting To Be Wooed). Although Brooks favored using the tax revenues to make tax cuts on dividends and capital gains permanent, a stance at odds with CTC’s progressive-tax-shift position, he at least grasped the need to reflect climate-change costs in fuel prices.

In 2009, Brooks wrote:

A crusade for economic self-restraint would have to rearrange the current alliances and embrace policies like energy taxes and spending cuts that are now deemed politically impossible. But this sort of moral revival is what the country actually needs.(The Next Culture War, Sept. 29, 2009, emphasis added).

In a commentary on the 2012 State of the Union address, Brooks chided President Obama for ignoring the Peterson Foundation’s call to “tax fossil fuels to spur innovation,” among other recommendations. (Hope, But Not Much Change, Jan. 27, 2012).

In a critique of clean-tech subsidies during the 2012 presidential campaign, Brooks wrote:

Global warming is still real. Green technology is still important. Personally, I’d support a carbon tax to give it a boost. But he who lives by the subsidy dies by the subsidy. Government planners should not be betting on what technologies will develop fastest. They should certainly not be betting on individual companies.(A Sad Green Story, Oct. 18, 2012, emphasis added.)

Paul Krugman

The Times influential economist-columnist (and economics Nobel laureate) has, curiously, shied from carbon-tax advocacy. During the run-up to the Dec. 2009 Copenhagen COP-15 session, Krugman attacked climatologist and cap-and-trade opponent James Hansen for allegedly failing to grasp that a robust permit-based emissions-control system would lead to the rising carbon price Hansen advocated. (Krugman badly underestimated Hansen’s economics acumen, in our view, as can be seen by reading any of Hansen’s pronouncements gathered on the Scientists page of this Web site or by viewing Hansen’s presentation at the Nov. 2010 Wesleyan Univ. Pricing Carbon conference.) Nevertheless, in a July, 2011 post on his Conscience of a Liberal blog, Krugman came out swinging for putting a price on carbon emissions:

Opponents of a strong policy to curb greenhouse gases tend to be fervent believers in the magic of market economies. Yet somehow their faith goes away when it comes to environmental issues. If you seriously believe in markets, you should believe that given the right incentives — namely, putting a price on emissions, through either a tax or a tradable permit scheme — the economy will find lots of ways to emit less. You should definitely not believe, as anti-environmentalists claim, that the result would be economic disaster. (The Answer, My Friend, July 19, 2011)

Thomas Friedman

His has been the most influential and persistent journalistic voice for breaking U.S. oil dependence by taxing gasoline and for addressing climate change with a carbon tax. His most recent column, The Market and Mother Nature, on Jan. 9, 2013, placed a carbon tax in the politically viable context of fiscal and tax reform:

A carbon tax would reinforce and make both strategies [deficit reduction and climate stabilization] easier. According to a September 2012 study by the Congressional Research Service, a small carbon tax of $20 per ton — escalating by 5.6 percent annually — could cut the projected 10-year deficit by roughly 50 percent (from $2.3 trillion down to $1.1 trillion).

Although a carbon tax needs to grow far faster than CRS’s hypothetical tax — which would take 13 years to double to just $40/ton — Friedman at least shows no signs of backing off his long-time carbon tax advocacy.

Friedman’s Sept. 14, 2011 column in this vein, Is It Weird Enough Yet?, was classic. Friedman set the table:

[H]ere is the Texas governor rejecting the science of climate change while his own state is on fire — after the worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions.”

He continued:

There is only one effective, sustainable way to produce “green jobs,” and that is with a fixed, durable, long-term price signal that raises the price of dirty fuels and thereby creates sustained consumer demand for, and sustained private sector investment in, renewables. Without a carbon tax or gasoline tax or cap-and-trade system that makes renewable energies competitive with dirty fuels, while they achieve scale and move down the cost curve, green jobs will remain a hobby.

and:

We need revenue to balance the budget. We need sustainable clean-tech jobs. We need less dependence on Mideast oil. And we need to take steps to mitigate climate change — just in case Governor Perry is wrong. The easiest way to do all of this at once is with a gasoline tax or price on carbon. Would you rather cut Social Security and Medicare or pay a little more per gallon of gas and make the country stronger, safer and healthier? It still amazes me that our politicians have the courage to send our citizens to war but not to ask the public that question.

Similarly, but more succinctly, is this passage from Friedman’s Nov. 28, 2010 column, Got to Get This Right:

We need to raise gasoline and carbon taxes to discourage their use and drive the creation of a new clean energy industry, while we cut payroll and corporate taxes to encourage employment and domestic investment.

The same sentiments appeared most recently on Aug. 5, 2012, under virtually the same headline, Get It Right On Gas:

[W]e also need to get the economics right. We’ll need more tax revenue to reach a budget deal in January. Why not a carbon tax that raises enough money to help pay down the deficit and lower both personal income taxes and corporate taxes — and ensures that renewables remain competitive with natural gas?

Friedman was both more expansive and more eloquent in The Price Is Not Right (April 1, 2009):

[I]f I had my wish, the leaders of the world’s 20 top economies would commit themselves to a new standard of accounting — call it “Market to Mother Nature” accounting. Why? Because it’s now obvious that the reason we’re experiencing a simultaneous meltdown in the financial system and the climate system is because we have been mispricing risk in both arenas — producing a huge excess of both toxic assets and toxic air that now threatens the stability of the whole planet.

Just as A.I.G. sold insurance derivatives at prices that did not reflect the real costs and the real risks of massive defaults (for which we the taxpayers ended up paying the difference), oil companies, coal companies and electric utilities today are selling energy products at prices that do not reflect the real costs to the environment and real risks of disruptive climate change (so future taxpayers will end up paying the difference).

Whenever products are mispriced and do not reflect the real costs and risks associated with their usage, people go to excess. And that is exactly what happened in the financial marketplace and in the energy/environmental marketplace during the credit bubble.

And our biggest energy companies, utilities and auto companies became dependent on cheap hydrocarbons that spin off climate-changing greenhouse gases, and we clearly have not forced them, through a carbon tax, to price in the true risks and costs to society from these climate-changing fuels.

“Destructive creation” has wounded both the Market and Mother Nature. Smart regulation and carbon taxation can heal both.

One week later, in Show Us the Ball (April 8, 2009), Friedman singled out Rep. John Larson’s carbon tax bill, “America’s Energy Security Trust Fund and Security Act, for praise:

Since the opponents of cap-and-trade are going to pillory it as a tax anyway, why not go for the real thing — a simple, transparent, economy-wide carbon tax?

Representative John B. Larson, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has circulated a draft bill that would impose “a per-unit tax on the carbon-dioxide content of fossil fuels, beginning at a rate of $15 per metric ton of CO2 and increasing by $10 each year.” The bill sets a goal, rather than a cap, on emissions at 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, and if the goal for the first five years is not met, the tax automatically increases by an additional $5 per metric ton. The bill implements a fee on carbon-intensive imports, as well, to press China to follow suit. Larson would use most of the income to reduce people’s payroll taxes: We tax your carbon sins and un-tax your payroll wins.

People get that — and simplicity matters. Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened, breathe cleaner air and live in a more sustainable world with a stronger America. They are much less likely to support a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing, which is what cap-and-trade is all about. People won’t support what they can’t explain.

We also count a dozen columns urging gasoline and/or carbon taxation in 2006 alone, including Who’s Afraid of a Gas Tax? (“Americans not only know that our oil addiction is really bad for us, but they would be willing to accept a gasoline tax if some leader would just frame the stakes for the country the right way,” March 1, 2006). Friedman subsequently broadened his call to “a gasoline or carbon tax”: And The Color of the Year Is … (“You have to make sure that green energy sources … can be delivered as cheaply as oil, gas and dirty coal. That will require a gasoline or carbon tax to keep the price of fossil fuels up so investors in green-tech will not get undercut while they drive innovation forward and prices down,” Dec. 22, 2006).

Friedman kept the pressure on in 2007, with The First Energy President (“It means asking Americans to do some hard things [including] accepting a gasoline or carbon tax,” Jan. 5), and (A Warning From the Garden, Jan. 19):

I don’t care whether it is a federal gasoline tax, carbon tax, B.T.U. tax or cap-and-trade system, power utilities, factories and car owners have to be required to pay the real and full cost to society of the carbon they put into the atmosphere. And higher costs for fossil fuels make more costly clean alternatives more competitive… And prices matter. They drive more and cleaner energy choices. So when the president unveils his energy proposals, if they don’t call for higher efficiency standards and higher prices for fossil fuels — take your socks off yourself. It’s going to get hot around here.

In a 9,000-word cover story in the Times Sunday Magazine in 2007, Friedman stated his preference for a carbon tax over a cap-and-trade system:

The market alone won’t work. Government’s job is to set high standards, let the market reach them and then raise the standards more. That’s how you get scale innovation at the China price. Government can do this by imposing steadily rising efficiency standards for buildings and appliances and by stipulating that utilities generate a certain amount of electricity from renewables — like wind or solar. Or it can impose steadily rising mileage standards for cars or a steadily tightening cap-and-trade system for the amount of CO2 any factory or power plant can emit. Or it can offer loan guarantees and fast-track licensing for anyone who wants to build a nuclear plant. Or — my preference and the simplest option — it can impose a carbon tax that will stimulate the market to move away from fuels that emit high levels of CO2 and invest in those that don’t. Ideally, it will do all of these things. But whichever options we choose, they will only work if they are transparent, simple and long-term — with zero fudging allowed and with regulatory oversight and stiff financial penalties for violators. The Power of Green, April 15, 2007

Friedman reiterated his desire for a carbon tax later in 2007, while criticizing the carbon offsets fad:

[W]hen you suggest a carbon tax or a higher gasoline tax — initiatives that would redirect resources and change habits at the scale actually needed to impact global warming — what is the first thing you hear in Congress? “Impossible — you can’t use the T-word.” A revolution without sacrifice where everyone is a winner? There’s no such thing. Live Bad, Go Green, July 8, 2007.

On May 21, 2008, Friedman opined:

It baffles me that President Bush would rather go to Saudi Arabia twice in four months and beg the Saudi king for an oil price break than ask the American people to drive 55 miles an hour, buy more fuel-efficient cars or accept a carbon tax or gasoline tax that might actually help free us from what he called our “addiction to oil.” Imbalances of Power.

Eight days later, on May 29, 2008, Friedman argued for a “price floor” to “guarantee people a high-price of gasoline – forever.” As Friedman stated:

The message going forward to every car buyer and carmaker would be this: The price of gasoline is never going back down. Therefore, if you buy a big gas guzzler today, you are locking yourself into perpetually high gasoline bills. You are buying a pig that will eat you out of house and home. At the same time, if you, a manufacturer, continue building fleets of nonhybrid gas guzzlers, you are condemning yourself, your employees and shareholders to oblivion. Truth or Consequences.

Friedman’s Dec. 7, 2008 column, The Real Generation X, contained possibly his most full-throated call yet for a carbon tax (emphases added):

It makes no sense to spend money on green infrastructure — or a bailout of Detroit aimed at stimulating production of more fuel-efficient cars — if it is not combined with a tax on carbon that would actually change consumer buying behavior.

Many people will tell Mr. Obama that taxing carbon or gasoline now is a “nonstarter.” Wrong. It is the only starter. It is the game-changer. If you want to know where postponing it has gotten us, visit Detroit. No carbon tax or increased gasoline tax meant that every time the price of gasoline went down to $1 or $2 a gallon, consumers went back to buying gas guzzlers. And Detroit just fed their addictions — so it never committed to a real energy-efficiency retooling of its fleet. R.I.P.

If Mr. Obama is going to oversee a successful infrastructure stimulus, then it has to include not only a tax on carbon — make it revenue-neutral and rebate it all by reducing payroll taxes — but also new standards that gradually require utilities and home builders in states that receive money to build dramatically more energy-efficient power plants, commercial buildings and homes. This, too, would create whole new industries.

Friedman followed that up on Dec. 28 with Win, Win, Win, Win, Win …:

I believe the second biggest decision Barack Obama has to make — the first is deciding the size of the stimulus — is whether to increase the federal gasoline tax or impose an economy-wide carbon tax. Best I can tell, the Obama team has no intention of doing either at this time… But I’ve wracked my brain trying to think of ways to retool America around clean-power technologies without a price signal — i.e., a tax — and there are no effective ones. (Toughening energy-effiency regulations alone won’t do it.) Without a higher gas tax or carbon tax, Obama will lack the leverage to drive critical pieces of his foreign and domestic agendas… The two most important rules about energy innovation are: 1) Price matters — when prices go up people change their habits. 2) You need a systemic approach.

Nicholas Kristof

His Hurricane Sandy cri de coeur, Will Climate Get Some Respect Now?, brilliantly connects the storm’s destructive ferocity to climate change, citing a warmer ocean, rising seas, more moist atmosphere, and the possibility that melting sea ice in the Arctic abetted the unusual atmospheric pattern that kept Sandy from moving back out to sea. His column concluded:

[W]e may need to invest in cleaner energy, impose a carbon tax or other curbs on greenhouse gases, and, above all, rethink how we can reduce the toll of a changing climate. (Oct. 31, 2012)

Here’s a Kristof sampler from prior years: Extended Forecast: Bloodshed (April 12, 2008):

[T]he United States’ reluctance to confront  climate change in a serious way — like a carbon tax to replace the payroll tax, coupled with global leadership on the issue –­ [is] as unjust as it is unfortunate.” In Search of Cheney’s ‘Virtue’ (“The best way to encourage [widespread implementation of energy efficiency] would be to impose a carbon tax, although a cap-and-trade system is a reasonable backup.” Aug. 20, 2007). Our Gas Guzzlers, Their Lives (“All this [climate-exacerbated drought and famine in Africa] makes it utterly reckless that we fail to institute a carbon tax or at least a cap-and-trade system for emissions.” June 28, 2007). Scandal Below the Surface (“We know what is needed: a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, a post-Kyoto accord on emissions cutbacks, and major research on alternative energy sources,” Oct. 31, 2006). A Paradise Drowning (“We must encourage conservation and fuel efficiency, support alternative forms of energy like wind, solar and biofuels, and … adopt a carbon tax… Jan. 8, 2006).

Gail Collins

When op-ed columnist Collins turned her attention to climate change, in early 2013, she zipped off some impressive lines:

There was a time … when the Republican Party was a hotbed of environmental worrywarts. The last big clean air act of the Bush I administration passed the House 401 to 21. But no more, no more. You’re not going to get any sympathy for controlling climate change from a group that doesn’t believe the climate is actually changing … It’s sort of ironic. These are the same folks who constantly seed their antideficit speeches with references to our poor, betrayed descendants. (“This is a burden our children and grandchildren will have to bear.”) Don’t you think the children and grandchildren would appreciate being allowed to hang onto the Arctic ice cap?

Collins acknowledged the Obama administration’s tightening of auto and appliance efficiency standards and then got down to business:

But a carbon tax/fee is the key to controlling climate change. That or just letting the next generation worry about whether the Jersey Shore is going to wind up lapping Trenton. (Cooling on Warming, March 27, 2013)

NYT Economic Columnist David Leonhardt (“Economix”)

The simplest idea in economics, I think, is that people respond to the incentives they are given… So if we have decided that we need to use less oil for our own good — which seems to be the case — we need big incentives to change our behavior… A substantial gas tax would be the simplest, with other taxes being cut to keep down the overall burden. Buy A Hybrid, Save A Guzzler, Feb. 8, 2006.

[I]f you put the economic advisers, from both parties, in a room and told them to hammer out solutions to the country’s big economic problems, they would find a lot of common ground. They could agree that doctors and patients need better incentives to choose effective medical care. They would probably hit upon education policies along similar lines, requiring that schools be held more accountable for what their students are, and are not, learning. They might suggest a carbon tax — a favorite idea of [former Bush chief economist Greg] Mankiw — to deal with global warming. The Economists are Writing Our Future, April 18, 2007.

No wonder [with gas now at $4 a gallon] that Americans are changing their driving habits so quickly. With sales plummeting, General Motors said Tuesday that it would stop making pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles at four of its North American plants. The company is also considering selling its Hummer brand, an emblem of the megavehicle. Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chairman, explained the moves by saying that he thought the shift toward more efficient cars was ‘by and large, permanent.’ The unyielding reality is that price matters, enormously. That’s all you need to know about the car market these days. Big Vehicles Stagger Under the Weight of $4 Gas, June 4, 2008.

Steven Rattner 

NYT Contributing Opinion Writer Rattner made a classic (and, in 2021, somewhat antequated) case for President Biden to “lean more heavily on the private sector to boost his infrastructure plan’s odds of success,” in Biden’s Big Government Should Be Handled With Care, April 9, 2021. It’s unclear if centrists like WV Sen. Joe Manchin or a handful of reputedly climate-concerned Republican Senators like Romney (UT), Murkowski (AS) or Collins (ME) are listening:

It’s criminal that the 18.4-cent federal gasoline tax hasn’t been raised since 1993, especially with oil prices so low. A tax of $43 per ton on carbon would be roughly equivalent to a 38-cents-per-gallon increase in the price of gasoline, leading motorists to cut back on their driving and opt for public transportation. And the proceeds could be rebated to Americans other than the wealthy via income tax credits.

The simplest, most effective and ultimately least expensive way to address the climate problem would be through a tax on greenhouse gas emissions — a carbon tax. Think about how many inefficient programs, how many thousands of pages of regulations and how much waste could be avoided.

Other Newspapers 

See the Writers & Pundits section of our Archived Supporters page for older pro-carbon tax commentary by Washington Post columnists E.J. Dionne, Anne Applebaum and others; Financial Times columnist Clive Crook, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Carolyn Lochhead; and others.

Magazines

See the Writers & Pundits section of our Archived Supporters page for older pro-carbon tax commentary in The New Republic, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, and other periodicals.

Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker magazine, author, “The Sixth Extinction”

In her article “Rough Forecasts,” (April 14, 2014) Elizabeth Kolbert used the global ban on CFCs to foreground her argument that it is time to stop “standing around and waiting” when dealing with climate change. Specifically, Kolbert argued for a carbon tax and explained:

Economists on both sides of the political spectrum agree that the most efficient way to reduce emissions is to impose a carbon tax. “If you want less of something, every economist will tell you to do the same thing: make it more expensive,” former Mayor Michael Bloomberg observed, in a speech announcing his support for such a tax.

Kolbert’s call for a carbon tax is particularly salient in the last paragraph of her article:

The fact that so much time has been wasted standing around means that the problem of climate change is now much more difficult to deal with than it was when it was first identified. But this only makes the imperative to act that much greater, because, as one set of grim predictions is being borne out, another, even worse set remains to be written.

In an earlier article, “Paying For It,” (December 10, 2012) published in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, Kolbert forcefully made the case for a carbon tax both as a way to create the incentives needed to reduce carbon pollution and as a substantial source of revenue, preferable to other kinds of taxes.  She explained how the “polluter pays” principle applies to carbon taxes:

One way to think about global warming is as a vast, planet-wide Pigovian problem. In this case, the man pulls up to a gas pump. He sticks his BP or Sunoco card into the slot, fills up, and drives off. He’s got a full tank; the gas station and the oil company share in the profits. Meanwhile, the carbon that spills out of his tailpipe lingers in the atmosphere, trapping heat and contributing to higher sea levels. As the oceans rise, coastal roads erode, beachfront homes wash away, and, finally, major cities flood. Once again, it’s the public at large that gets left with the bill. The logical, which is to say the fair, way to address this situation would be to make the driver absorb the cost for his slice of the damage. This could be achieved by a new Pigovian tax, on carbon.

“Pigovian” refers to the legendary British economist Alfred Pigou who early in the 20^th Century pioneered the study of “externalities,” with environmental pollution as his prime case.

Noting that “as Washington edges toward the fiscal cliff, it has become obvious to just about everyone, except maybe House Republicans, that Washington needs more revenue,” Kolbert pointed out recent research showing the fiscal benefits of carbon taxes:

The Congressional Research Service reported that, over the next decade, a relatively modest carbon tax could cut the projected federal deficit in half. Such a tax would be imposed not just on gasoline but on all fossil fuels—from the coal used to generate electricity to the diesel used to run tractors—so it would affect the price of nearly everything, including food and manufactured goods. To counter its regressive effects, the tax could be used as a substitute for other, even more regressive taxes, or, alternatively, some of the proceeds could be returned to low-income families as rebates (although, of course, this would cut down on the amount that could go toward deficit reduction).

But she lamented:

One key player who has not embraced the idea is Barack Obama. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, was asked about the tax last month, en route, as it happens, to visit storm-ravaged areas of New York with the President. “We would never propose a carbon tax, and have no intention of proposing one,” Carney told reporters. This was taken by some to mean that Obama was opposed to the tax and by others to mean just that he was not going to be the one to suggest it. In either case, the White House is making a big mistake. Pigovian taxes are rarely politically popular—something they have in common with virtually all taxes. But, as Obama embarks on his second term, it’s time for him to take some risks. Several countries, including Australia and Sweden, already have a carbon tax. Were the United States to impose one, it would have global significance. It would show that Americans are ready to acknowledge, finally, that we are part of the problem. There is a price to be paid for living as we do, and everyone is going to get stuck with the bill.

Kolbert’s suggestion partially came true at the end of 2015, at the Paris climate conference, when President Obama took the “risk” (albeit in the latter part of his second term) and affirmed that he has “long believed that the most elegant way to drive innovation and to reduce carbon emissions is to put a price on it … This is a classic market failure.” (Obama’s quote may be found at the end of the linked post.)

Others

See the Writers & Pundits section of our Archived Supporters page for older pro-carbon tax commentary by The New Yorker columnist Hendrik Hertzberg, columnist Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson, 350.org founder and journalist-author Bill McKibben, journalist David Roberts, and others.

This is one of half-a-dozen pages compiling expressions of support for carbon taxes (or more targeted taxes, e.g., on gasoline) by notable individuals and organizations. To access other pages with different supporter categories, click on the Progress link on the navigation bar and move to the desired category.

Economists comprise the most vocal — even vociferous — community of carbon-tax supporters. This is unsurprising, insofar as “one of the first principles of economics — perhaps the most important — is that people respond to incentives,” and a carbon tax is the embodiment of incentives, provided its level is sufficiently robust.

The quote above is taken from Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw, whom we designate below as one of the two most persistent and persuasive pro-carbon-tax economists. The other is Cornell economics professor Robert H. Frank.

We begin by referencing the 68-page Report of the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices composed by a 13-member council of luminaries supported by the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition and published in May 2017 by the World Bank.

The 13-member council was chaired by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (U.S.) and Lord Nicholas Stern (U.K.) and was drawn from seven other countries as well: Brazil, France, China, India, Indonesia, Mali and South Africa.

The report “identif[ied] the range of carbon prices that, together with other supportive policies, would deliver on the Paris climate targets agreed by nearly 200 countries in December 2015,” according to the council’s press release, which was issued under the title, Leading Economists: A Strong Carbon Price Needed to Drive Large-Scale Climate Action. It found that “meeting the world’s agreed climate goals in the most cost-effective way while fostering growth requires countries to set a strong carbon price, with the goal of reaching $40-$80 per metric ton of CO2 by 2020 and $50-100 per metric ton by 2030.”

The report stated that “a well-designed carbon price is an indispensable part of a strategy for efficiently reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also fostering growth [and] that a strong and predictable carbon-price trajectory provides a powerful signal to individuals and firms that the future is low carbon, inducing the changes needed in global investment, production, and consumption patterns.”

“Specific carbon price levels will need to be tailored to country conditions and policy choices,” said Commission member, Professor Harald Winkler of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. “Carbon pricing makes sense in all countries, but low-income countries, which may be more challenged to protect the people vulnerable to the initial economic impacts, may decide to start pricing carbon at a lower level and gradually increase over time.”

Other broad expressions of economists’ support for carbon taxing

In an April 1, 2012 column in The New York Times, Prof. Richard H. Thaler of the U-Chicago Booth School of Business aptly summed up the near-unanimity among economists that carbon taxing is the optimal way to reduce CO2 emissions: “Consider a recent poll of a panel of economists conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where I teach… [Forty-one] economists in [a poll conducted by the] University of Chicago … were asked whether they agreed with this statement: ‘A tax on the carbon content of fuels would be a less expensive way to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions than would a collection of policies such as ‘corporate average fuel economy’ requirements for automobiles.’ On this question, there was just a single negative vote.” (Why Gas Prices Are Out of Any President’s Control).

In 2011, The Economist asked, Do All Economists Favour a Carbon Tax?

Carbon emissions represent a negative externality. When an individual takes an economic action with some fossil-fuel energy content—whether running a petrol-powered lawnmower, turning on a light, or buying bunch of grapes—that person balances their personal benefits against the costs of the action. The cost to them of the climate change resulting from the carbon content of that decisions, however, is effectively zero and is rationally ignored. The decision to ignore carbon content, when aggregated over the whole of humanity, generates huge carbon dioxide emissions and rising global temperatures.

The economic solution is to tax the externality so that the social cost of carbon is reflected in the individual consumer’s decision. The carbon tax is an elegant solution to a complicated problem, which allows the everyday business of consumer decision making to do the work of emission reduction. It’s by no means the only economically sensible policy response to the threat of climate change, but it is the one we’d expect economists to embrace.

Economists overwhelmingly support a well-designed national carbon tax. In 2012, a University of Chicago survey asked 40 prominent economists from across the political spectrum whether they would prefer the government to raise revenue through traditional income taxes or via a national carbon tax. Not one chose the income tax approach.

Finally, we have: A majority of economists polled by the Wall Street Journal during Feb. 2-7, 2007:

The government should encourage development of alternatives to fossil fuels, economists said in a WSJ.com survey. But most say the best way to do that isn’t in President Bush’s energy proposals: a new tax on fossil fuels. Forty of 47 economists who answered the question said the government should help champion alternative fuels. “Economists generally are in favor of free-market solutions, but there are times when you need to intervene,” said David Wyss at Standard & Poor’s Corp. “We’re already in the danger zone” because of the outlook for oil supplies and concerns about climate change, he said. A majority of the economists said a tax on fossil fuels would be the most economically sound way to encourage alternatives. A tax would raise the price of fossil fuels and make alternatives, which today often are more costly to produce, more competitive in the consumer market. “A tax puts pressure on the market, rather than forcing an artificial solution on it,” said Mr. Wyss. (WSJ, Is It Time for a New Tax on Energy?, Feb. 8, 2007; the foregoing text is lifted directly from the article.)

Two standout pro-carbon-tax economists: Greg Mankiw and Bob Frank

Two Ivy League university economics professors occupying somewhat opposing positions on the usual left-right spectrum are arguably their profession’s most ubiquitous advocates for taxing carbon emissions.

Gregory Mankiw (Harvard), a proud centrist (or right-of-centrist), is a distinguished pedagogue and political adviser. He chaired President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers (2003-2005) and was senior economic advisor to the 2012 Romney for President campaign.

Robert H. Frank (Cornell), author of The Winner-Take-All Society and The Darwin Economy, and, in 2020, Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work ranks with Mankiw in his unceasing and imaginative advocacy of carbon and other “Pigovian” taxes. He also carries on Thorstein Veblen’s critique of “conspicuous consumption,” framing it as an argument for sharply higher taxes on wealth.

Mankiw

In a Sept 2020 column in the NY Times Sunday business section, Pay People to Get Vaccinated, Mankiw used carbon taxing as a template to support the proposal by Brookings Institution economist Bob Litan for the U.S. government to achieve high Coronavirus vaccination rates by paying Americans to take a prospective vaccine. Mankiw wrote:

Immunology, meet economics. One of the first principles of economics — perhaps the most important — is that people respond to incentives. Applying this principle to the case at hand, Mr. Litan recommends that the government pay $1,000 to whoever gets the vaccine. With a large enough incentive, most Americans are likely to get vaccinated.

This proposal is textbook economics. (I’ve written some of the textbooks.) As all economics students learn, when an activity has a side effect on bystanders, that effect is called an externality. In the presence of externalities, the famous theorems of economics that justify laissez-faire do not apply. Adam Smith’s vaunted invisible hand can no longer work its magic.

A classic example of a negative externality is pollution, and the simplest and least invasive policy solution is a tax on emissions. In economics-speak, such a tax internalizes the externality: It induces polluters to take the cost of pollution into account by giving them a financial incentive to cut emissions. That’s why I have written here many times that a tax on carbon emissions is the best way to deal with global climate change.

Vaccination confers a positive externality. When you get vaccinated, you benefit not only yourself but also your fellow citizens by helping society take a step toward herd immunity. In this case, internalizing the externality requires not a tax but a subsidy, as Mr. Litan suggests.

(emphases added)

In 2019, announcing his switch of party affiliation from Republican to independent in The New York Times (‘Republican Economist’ Sheds a Party Label, Nov. 17, 2019 print edition), Mankiw spelled out what he wanted in political candidates’ platforms:

A Market-Based Approach to Climate Change: The consensus of scientists is that climate change is a serious threat. We need to respond but in a way that avoids rigid government regulation. The solution is a carbon tax, with all revenue rebated as carbon dividends. Putting a price on carbon would give everyone an incentive to reduce their carbon footprint.

In late 2012, Mankiw wrote in a NY Times op-ed, Wishful Thinking and Middle-Class Taxes (Dec. 29, 2012):

Ultimately, unless we scale back entitlement programs far more than anyone in Washington is now seriously considering, we will have no choice but to increase taxes on a vast majority of Americans. This could involve higher tax rates or an elimination of popular deductions. Or it could mean an entirely new tax, such as a value-added tax or a carbon tax. (emphasis added)

While that was only a mild endorsement of a carbon tax, the timing was noteworthy, coming in the late stages of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations and less than two months after Romney’s defeat in an election campaign in which he had belittled concerns over climate disruption.

Years earlier, Mankiw powerfully made the case for a carbon tax in an op-ed, One Answer to Global Warming, in the Sept. 16, 2007 NY Times Sunday Business Section (see our blog for excerpts and discussion). His 2006 Wall Street Journal op-ed pieces (Jan. 3 and Oct. 20) are among the many lively pieces available on Mankiw’s pro-fuel-tax blog, The Pigou Club Manifesto. (Economist Arthur Pigou, 1877-1959, developed the concept of economic externalities along with corrective “Pigovian” taxes.) On the last day of 2006 Mankiw reiterated his 2006 New Year’s Resolutions from his Jan. 3, 2006 WSJ piece, including:

I will tell the American people that a higher tax on gasoline is better at encouraging conservation than are heavy-handed CAFE regulations. It would not only encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient cars, but it would encourage them to drive less, such as by living closer to where they work. I will tell people that tolls are a good way to reduce traffic congestion — and with new technologies they are getting easier to collect. I will advocate a carbon tax as the best way to control global warming.

In a Sept. 16, 2006 post to his blog, Rogoff Joins the Pigou Club, Mankiw listed some three dozen other economists and pundits who have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes. The list includes, in addition to several individuals mentioned here, such notables from economics, finance and journalism as Alan Greenspan, Gary Becker, William Nordhaus, Richard Posner, Anthony Lake, Martin Feldstein, Gregg Easterbrook and Lawrence Summers. (Links are included.)

In a June 1, 2008 NY Times column, The Problem With the Corporate Tax, Mankiw wrote:

I have a back-up plan for [Sen. McCain]: increase the gasoline tax. With Americans consuming about 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year, a gas-tax increase of about 40 cents a gallon could fund a corporate rate cut, fostering economic growth and reducing a variety of driving-related problems. Indeed, if we increased the tax on gasoline to the level that many experts consider optimal, we could raise enough revenue to eliminate the corporate income tax. And the price at the pump would still be far lower in the United States than in much of Europe.

In early 2012, Mankiw wrote in his NY Times column, A Better Tax System (Instructions Included):

Tax Bads Rather Than Goods: A good rule of thumb is that when you tax something, you get less of it. That means that taxes on hard work, saving and entrepreneurial risk-taking impede these fundamental drivers of economic growth. The alternative is to tax those things we would like to get less of. Consider the tax on gasoline. Driving your car is associated with various adverse side effects, which economists call externalities. These include traffic congestion, accidents, local pollution and global climate change. If the tax on gasoline were higher, people would alter their behavior to drive less. They would be more likely to take public transportation, use car pools or live closer to work. The incentives they face when deciding how much to drive would more closely match the true social costs and benefits. Economists who have added up all the externalities associated with driving conclude that a tax exceeding $2 a gallon makes sense. That would provide substantial revenue that could be used to reduce other taxes. By taxing bad things more, we could tax good things less. (Jan. 22, 2012)

Frank

We present this sampling from Prof. Frank’s columns in the NY Times Sunday business section:

Reducing CO2 emissions would actually be surprisingly easy. The most effective remedy would be a carbon tax, which would raise the after-tax price of goods in rough proportion to the size of their carbon footprint. Gasoline would become more expensive, piano lessons would not. The functional equivalent of that — a cap-and-trade system — worked spectacularly well when Congress required marketable permits for discharging sulfur dioxide (SO2) in 1995. Acid rain caused by SO2 emissions quickly plummeted, at about one-sixth the cost predicted. Once people have to pay for their emissions, they find ingenious ways of reducing them. (Shattering Myths to Help the Climate, Aug. 2, 2014)

Although an effective solution will take global coordination, America’s inaction has been a major barrier to progress. If the United States and Europe each adopted a steep carbon tax, they could elicit broader cooperation through heavy tariffs on goods produced in countries that failed to do likewise. India and China need access to our markets, giving us enormous leverage. (Shattering Myths to Help the Climate, Aug. 2, 2014)

NO one enjoys paying taxes — and no politician relishes raising them. Yet some taxes actually make us better off, even apart from the revenue they provide for public services. Taxes on activities with harmful side effects are a case in point. (Heads, You Win. Tails, You Win, Too., Jan. 5, 2013)

[W]e could insulate ourselves from catastrophic [climate] risk at relatively modest cost by enacting a steep carbon tax. Early studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimated that a carbon tax of up to $80 per metric ton of emissions — a tax that might raise gasoline prices by 70 cents a gallon— would eventually result in climate stability. But because recent estimates about global warming have become more pessimistic, stabilization may require a much higher tax. How hard would it be to live with a tax of, say, $300 a ton? If such a tax were phased in, the prices of goods would rise gradually in proportion to the amount of carbon dioxide their production or use entailed. The price of gasoline, for example, would slowly rise by somewhat less than $3 a gallon. Motorists in many countries already pay that much more than Americans do, and they seem to have adapted by driving substantially more efficient vehicles. (Carbon Tax Silence, Overtaken by Events, Aug. 25, 2012)

Taxes are … a far cheaper and less coercive way to curtail [harmful] behavior than laws or prescriptive regulations. That’s because taxes concentrate harm reduction in the hands of those who can alter their behavior most easily. When we tax pollution, for instance, polluters with the cheapest ways to reduce emissions rush to adopt them, thereby avoiding the tax… Every dollar raised by taxing harmful activities is one dollar less that we must raise by taxing useful ones. The resulting revenue would enable us to reduce not only the federal deficit, but also the highly regressive payroll tax. And cutting that tax would stimulate hiring and help low-income families meet the burden of new taxes on harmful activities. (Find the Taxes That Do Double Duty, Feb. 18, 2011)

In 2012, Frank used the Obama-Romney presidential race to argue for both carbon emissions pricing and congestion pricing as ways to improve economic efficiency and well-being by taxing the externalities of carbon pollution traffic and traffic congestion. In Nation’s Choices Needn’t Be Painful (Sept 22, 2012), Frank pushed back against the then-prevailing view that “the nation face[d] difficult economic choices:

Consider highway congestion. Because drivers can generally enter a congested highway without charge, they often do so — thus adding to the crowding. But many drivers would willingly pay a fee for using that road if it resulted in fewer delays. A modest congestion fee, administered with E-ZPass-style technology, would raise needed revenue and provide an incentive to use crowded roads only when the benefits outweigh the social costs.

Critics object that such fees would harm low-income households. But because the gains far exceed their price, we can redistribute them so that everyone comes out ahead. Some of the new revenue, for example, could support tax relief for low-income households.

Similar spillover effects pervade the economy. People have little incentive to consider the danger of carbon emissions, for example, or the risks that the heavy vehicles they drive are posing to others. Taxing carbon emissions and taxing vehicles by weight would expand the economic pie by curtailing activities that do more harm than good. And because some of the resulting revenue could help low-income families, these taxes, too, needn’t be painful.

In the same 2012 op-ed, Frank ingeniously  parried the concern over raising taxes, even through externality pricing, at a time of economic stagnation:

Approving [externality taxes] now and scheduling them for phase-in only after the economy rebounds would serve two objectives. First, anxious credit markets would be reassured about the nation’s capacity to pay down government debt. And second, the delayed new taxes would speed the recovery by encouraging immediate increases in private spending.

With a carbon tax on the horizon, businesses would rush to develop technologies for adapting to higher energy prices. And consumers would accelerate major purchases to escape the looming consumption tax. The economy would get just the infusion of spending it needs — without the government’s having to spend a penny.

More recently, in August 2020, Frank took dead aim at “the fear that emissions would fall too slowly in response to a carbon tax” in another Times Sunday business column, Behavioral Contagion Could Spread the Benefits of a Carbon Tax:

[C]ritics are correct that a carbon tax alone won’t parry the climate threat. It is also true that as creatures of habit, humans tend to change their behavior only slowly, even in the face of significant financial incentives. But even small changes in behavior are greatly amplified by behavioral contagion — the social scientist’s term for how ideas and behaviors spread from person to person like infectious diseases. And if a carbon tax were to shift the behavior of some individuals now, those changes would quickly spread more widely.

Frank invoked social science data on cigarette smoking (and avoidance), homeowners’ installation of solar-photovoltaic panels, and, in this passage, meat eating (and avoidance), to argue that taxes on carbon emissions will reverberate more powerfully than is generally assumed:

Behavioral contagion also has been shown to influence dietary choices. People often eat meat because they grew up with, and continue to live among, people for whom substantial meat consumption is the norm. Because meat has a large carbon footprint, a carbon tax would make it more expensive relative to plant-based foods.

The direct effect of this price change would be small. But as some people shifted the composition of their diets, others would find it easier to shift as well. In short order, these positive-feedback effects would produce more widespread shifts in eating habits. Behavioral contagion would similarly amplify initial responses to a carbon tax in virtually every other energy-intensive activity. (emphases added)

Behavioral contagion is the primary subject of Frank’s latest (2020) book, Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work. From the publisher’s blurb:

Under the Influence explains how to unlock the latent power of social context. It reveals how our environments encourage smoking, bullying, tax cheating, sexual predation, problem drinking, and wasteful energy use. We are building bigger houses, driving heavier cars, and engaging in a host of other activities that threaten the planet—mainly because that’s what friends and neighbors do.

Frank describes how the strongest predictor of our willingness to support climate-friendly policies, install solar panels, or buy an electric car is the number of people we know who have already done so. In the face of stakes that could not be higher, the book explains how we could redirect trillions of dollars annually in support of carbon-free energy sources, all without requiring painful sacrifices from anyone.

Other economists, listed alphabetically

Alan Blinder, Federal Reserve vice-chairman 1994-1996 and Princeton Professor of Economics and Public Affairs.  In “The Carbon Tax Miracle Cure,” Blinder suggested on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 31, 2011):

[A] carbon tax… should be enacted now [but] set at zero for 2011 and 2012. After that, it would ramp up gradually… What’s critical is that we lock in higher future costs of carbon today.

Once America’s entrepreneurs and corporate executives see lucrative opportunities from carbon-saving devices and technologies, they will start investing right away—and in ways that make the most economic sense… I can hardly wait to witness the outpouring of ideas it would unleash. The next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are waiting in the wings to make themselves rich by helping the environment.  Jobs follow investment, and we need jobs now.

Blinder recommends using carbon tax revenue to reduce the deficit and underscores the advantages of a carbon tax over other deficit reduction strategies:

[E]very realistic observer knows that closing our humongous federal budget deficit will require a mix of higher taxes and lower spending as shares of GDP. Forget about value-added taxes and other new levies you may have heard about. A CO2 tax trumps them all… reducing our trade deficit, making our economy more efficient, ameliorating global warming, and showing the world that American capitalism has not lost its edge.

Tyler Cowen, economics professor at George Mason University. Cowen also directs the Mercatus Center, “which studies how societies become and stay prosperous, and is coauthor of the blog Marginal Revolution.”

Phase out all forms of capital income taxation, including the corporate income tax, and replace them with a carbon tax, including a gasoline tax. “Savings and investment boost economic growth, but when it comes to energy, global warming threatens as a major problem and our dependence on Middle Eastern oil damages our foreign policy.  (Cowen’s “Economic Idea #4 that voters need to hear”; from Economic Ideas for Republicans, U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 18, 2006; however, that link was inactive as of August 2014.)

Herman E. Daly, professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, foremost U.S. ecological economist, author of Ecological Economics, Steady-State Economics, Valuing The Earth, among other works:

Is it hard to come up with a reasonable [climate] policy? Not really — a stiff severance tax on carbon, levied at the well head, mine mouth, or port of entry, would go a long way by both reducing carbon use and giving an incentive for developing alternative carbon-free technologies. Yes, but how do we know what is the optimal tax rate, and wouldn’t it be regressive, etc.? … [T]ax the resource throughput (that to which value is added) and stop taxing value added. Tax bads (depletion and pollution), not goods (income). Does anyone imagine that we tax income at the optimal rate? Better first to tax the right thing and later worry about the “optimal” rate of taxation, compensation for regressivity, etc. People don’t like to see the value added by their own efforts taxed away, even though we accept it as necessary up to a point. But most people don’t mind seeing resource rents, value that no one added, taxed away. And the most important public good served by the carbon tax would be climate stability, brought about by the consequent reduction in use of carbon fuels and the incentive to invent less carbon-intensive energy sources. And much of the revenue from the carbon severance tax could be rebated to the public by abolishing other taxes, especially regressive ones. Climate Change: From ‘Know How’ to ‘Do Now’, Grist, Aug. 14, 2007.

Gilbert Metcalf, Tufts University economist, was appointed in March 2011 by President Obama to head the energy office at the Treasury Department. Metcalf is a prominent and effective advocate of revenue-neutral carbon taxes. In August of 2007, the World Resources Institute and the Brookings Institution jointly published a policy brief by Prof. Metcalf, outlining a national carbon tax paired with a partial refund of the payroll tax. The brief assesses the expected emissions reductions from a tax starting at $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide whose revenue would be used to rebate the federal payroll tax on the first $3,660 of earnings per worker. This tax swap is both revenue-neutral and distributionally neutral. (Video of Prof. Metcalf’s 2008 presentation.)

With Prof. David Weisbach (Univ. of Chicago Law School), Prof. Metcalf authored “The  Design of a Carbon Tax”  (Harvard Environmental Law Review, 2009) addressing carbon tax design issues: the tax rate (including distributional issues, the use of the revenues, and tax rate changes), the tax base, and international trade concerns.

Paul Portney, Dean, Eller College of Management, Univ. of Arizona (and president, Resources for the Future, 1995-2005):

[W]e’re nuts not to have instituted gradually increasing controls on CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The worst-case scenario, especially for future generations, is too scary not to be taking some preventative measures now. A carbon tax is obviously the best way to deal with this problem. It would raise revenues the government will badly need to pay for Social Security and Medicare as old fogies like me begin to retire, as well as create incentives for energy conservation, emissions reductions, and clean technology innovation. (What Are the Biggest Environmental Challenges Facing the United States?, RFF Weekly Policy Commentary, Sept. 10, 2007)

Robert Reich, Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, former Secretary of Labor and co-founder of The American Prospect :

What’s needed is a carbon tax — a tax on all fossil-based fuels that reflects their true social, political, and environmental costs. That should remain the goal, but as a practical matter it’s not going to happen any time soon. Republicans won’t enact a tax hike for any purpose. And right now congressional Democrats don’t have the intestinal fortitude, or the votes, to enact it on their own. (American Prospect Online Edition, Inherit the Windfall Feb. 7, 2007)

Economist Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University:

The changeover to a sustainable energy system will take decades and will require carbon taxes and emission permits to create market-based incentives for companies and individuals to switch to new kinds of electrical power plants, new kinds of automobiles and ‘green buildings.’ (Miami Herald, We Must Reverse Global Warming, Feb. 23, 2007)

The world’s producers and consumers currently regard the air as a free dumping ground for carbon dioxide and other climate-changing greenhouse gases. We need to correct market forces—for example, by taxing carbon emissions that are offset by tax reductions elsewhere—in order to create the right incentives. (Time Magazine, March 24, 2008; direct link unavailable, but full text was published later that year in Petroleum World).

[T]here is a much better strategy than tradable [emission] permits. Each region of the world should introduce a tax on CO₂ emissions that starts low today and increases gradually and predictably in the future. Part of the tax revenue should be channeled into subsidies for new low-carbon energy sources like wind and solar, and to cover the costs of developing CCS (Carbon Capture & Sequestration). These subsidies could start fairly high and decline gradually over time, as the tax on CO₂ emissions rises and the costs of new energy technologies fall with more experience and innovation. With a long-term and predictable carbon tax and subsidy system, the world would move systematically toward low-carbon energy, greater energy efficiency, and CCS. (Economy Watch, Towards A Global Carbon Tax – A Better Way To Fight Climate Change?, March 4, 2013).

Robert J. Shapiro, former Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs

Mr. Shapiro, Commerce Undersecretary in the Clinton Administration, authored the American Consumer Institute’s Feb. 2007 report, Addressing the Risks of Climate Change: The Environmental Effectiveness and Economic Efficiency of Emissions Caps and Tradable Permits, Compared to Carbon Taxes. From the Executive Summary:

Carbon taxes would be a better response to the risks of global warming than emissions caps and tradable permits (commonly referred to as cap-and-trade)… [Carbon taxes] are much less vulnerable to evasion and market manipulation, providing a more stable and transparent system for consumers and industry alike. [Carbon taxes] do not create the price volatility and administrative problems associated with cap and trade.

In a June 2008 follow-on study, Addressing Climate Change Without Impairing the U.S. Economy: The Economics and Environmental Science of Combining a Carbon-Based Tax and Tax Relief, Shapiro calls for a federal carbon tax starting at $14 per metric ton of CO₂ in 2010 and rising steadily to $50 in 2030 (equivalent to $82 with inflation). Shapiro concludes that the nearly revenue-neutral carbon tax would reduce CO₂ emissions by 30% below non-taxed levels while shaving only eight-tenths of one percent off future (2030) GDP. The report was published by the U.S. Climate Task Force, a project of Shapiro’s Sonecon economic advisory company.

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics and University Professor at Columbia University; formerly Chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank:

Not paying the cost of damage to the environment is a subsidy, just as not paying the full costs of workers would be… American firms are being subsidized—and massively so. There is a simple remedy: other countries should prohibit the importation of American goods produced using energy intensive technologies, or, at the very least, impose a high tax on them, to offset the subsidy that those goods currently are receiving. (A New Agenda for Global Warming, Economists’ Voice, July 2006)

Economic efficiency requires that those who generate emissions pay the cost, and the simplest way of forcing them to do so is through a carbon tax. There could be an international agreement that every country would impose a carbon tax at an agreed rate (reflecting the global social cost). Indeed, it makes far more sense to tax bad things, like pollution, than to tax good things like work and savings. Such a tax would increase global efficiency. Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a tax system. Some firms can even make money off the deal. Moreover, Europe has grown used to the concept of cap-and-trade, and many are loathe to try an alternative. Yet, no one has proposed an acceptable set of principles for assigning emission rights. (Showdown in Bali, Project Syndicate, Dec. 2007)

More recently, Stiglitz has decried the stalled UN climate negotiations as a “charade.”  Stigliz feels that the 2 decade-long attempt to allocate responsibility for reducing emissions among nations is doomed; he instead urges negotiators to shift to a price-based negotiation to set a global carbon tax:

Stiglitz’s plan is to set a single, global price for carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas. The idea is to make it so expensive to use carbon that consumers and businesses voluntarily use less of it. Countries could raise the price of carbon either with a tax or with a domestic cap-and-trade system, Stiglitz says. In his vision, if a country didn’t set its carbon price high enough, hoping to gain a pricing advantage, other countries would be allowed to charge tariffs on its exports. He would throw in a green fund to compensate hard-hit poor countries. (Stiglitz Calls Climate Talks a ‘Charade,’ Pushes Plan C, Bloomberg, 7/10/15)

Lawrence Summers, Charles W. Eliot university professor (and former president), Harvard University (and Former Treasury Secretary):

[T]he U.S. must engage in an energy efficiency program that takes effect without delay and has meaningful bite. As long as developing countries can point to the U.S. as a free rider there will not be serious dialogue about what they are willing to do. I prefer carbon and/or gasoline tax measures to permit systems or heavy regulatory approaches because the latter are more likely to be economically inefficient and to be regressive.” (Financial Times, Practical Steps to Climate Control, May 28, 2007)

Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, 1979-1987: See discussion on our “Public Officials” page.

Janet Yellen, co-chair, G30 Working Group on Climate Change and Finance; chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, 2014-2018, vice-chair, 2010-2014:

Carbon pricing is key. All firms across our economy need to pay the price of polluting the planet. It will certainly affect the economics of fracking and coal — the idea is to drive that stuff out of business over time. Maybe it doesn’t sound pleasant to say, but that’s what has to happen. (The 39 Things Biden Should Do First on Climate Change, Bloomberg Green, Nov. 11, 2020)

Gary Yohe, IPCC “Fourth Assessment” chapter editor and Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University. Prof. Yohe presented on the economic rationale for carbon pricing at the Wesleyan “Pricing Carbon” Conference in Nov. 2010, and was profiled on this point in Yale 360 in Dec. 2008.

This page, featuring public officials, is one of half-a-dozen pages compiling expressions of support for carbon taxes (or more targeted taxes, e.g., on gasoline) by notable individuals and organizations. To access other pages with different supporter categories, click on the Progress link on the navigation bar and move to the desired category.

Biden Cabinet

Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary-designate:

Carbon pricing is key. All firms across our economy need to pay the price of polluting the planet. It will certainly affect the economics of fracking and coal — the idea is to drive that stuff out of business over time. Maybe it doesn’t sound pleasant to say, but that’s what has to happen. (The 41 Things Biden Should Do First on Climate Change, Bloomberg Green, Nov. 11, 2020)

U.S. Senate

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

Senator Sanders introduced his Climate Protection and Justice Act last Dec. 9, just prior to the closing of the Paris Climate Summit. We discuss the bill here, but it has been in his presidential campaign that Sen. Sanders has put a carbon pollution tax on the political map, unabashedly championing the idea in the debates and criticizing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not similarly making a carbon tax the centerpiece of her climate program.

 

In June 2016, Grist magazine posted a terrific campaign compendium, Our Favorite Bernie Sanders Moments, noting that Sanders called climate change the greatest threat to our national security and pulled Hillary Clinton to the left on climate and energy. Here are excerpts:

On taxing carbon: His climate change plan called for a carbon tax that will “tax polluters causing the climate crisis, and return billions of dollars to working families to ensure the fossil fuel companies don’t subject us to unfair rate hikes.” And it aimed for a 40 percent cut in emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels — a level of ambition on par with Europe’s.

On offshore drilling: The plan also called for ending offshore drilling, for the sake of energy security and the environment. “If we are serious about moving beyond oil toward energy independence, lowering the cost of energy, combating climate change, and cutting carbon pollution emissions, then we must ban offshore drilling,” it read.

On climate denial: “The reality is that the fossil fuel industry is to blame for much of the climate change skepticism in America,” Sanders says in his climate plan. In October, he joined those calling for the Department of Justice to investigate ExxonMobil’s climate obfuscation.

On Donald Trump’s climate denial: “How brilliant can you be?” mocked Sanders in front of a New Hampshire audience in January. “The entire scientific community has concluded that climate change is real and causing major problems, and Trump believes that it’s a hoax created by the Chinese. Surprised it wasn’t the Mexicans.” Trump, for his part, has a history of flip-flopping on climate.

On encountering a climate-denying teenager: “Thank you for your question. You’re wrong.”

On climate change as a security threat: In an October debate, Sanders said climate change was the greatest threat to U.S. national security: “The scientific community is telling us that if we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to sustainable energy, the planet that we’re going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable. That is a major crisis.” In a debate in November, Sanders said that “climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism.” (PolitiFact later called out the causality here as Mostly False, but there are indeed some linkages between climate change and war.)

On the Paris climate agreement: “While this is a step forward it goes nowhere near far enough. The planet is in crisis. We need bold action in the very near future and this does not provide that,” said Sanders in December. Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta later used this statement to argue that Sanders wanted to back out of the Paris Agreement.

On keeping it in the ground: In November, he cosponsored the Keep It in the Ground Act of 2015, which would halt new coal leases on public lands and prohibit drilling on the outer continental shelf.

On the fossil fuel industry: “To hell with the fossil fuel industry.”

Grist noted that in March, the Climate Hawks Vote PAC ran a survey asking which candidate it should it endorse, and Sanders got 92 percent of the vote. “We need clean-energy leadership in the White House,” wrote the group it its subsequent endorsement of Sanders. “We need a climate revolution.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

On Nov. 19, 2014, Senator Whitehouse, famous for his weekly floor speeches about the dangers of global warming, introduced the American Opportunity Carbon Fee Act which would impose a $42 per ton carbon tax, increasing annually at 2% above inflation. Senator Whitehouse’s price trajectory follows the Obama Administration’s central estimate of the “social cost of carbon,” the value of the harms caused by carbon pollution including falling agricultural productivity, damages to human health, and property losses from flooding.

The fee would be assessed on all coal, oil, and natural gas produced in or imported to the U.S. and also cover large emitters of non-carbon greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide from non-fossil-fuel sources.

All revenue generated by the carbon pollution fee – which could exceed $2 trillion over ten years – would be credited to an American Opportunity Fund to be returned to the American people.  Possible uses include:

• Economic assistance to low-income families and those residing in areas with high energy costs
• Tax cuts
• Social security benefit increases
• Tuition assistance and student debt relief
• Infrastructure investments
• Dividends to individuals and families
• Transition assistance to workers and businesses in energy-intensive and fossil-fuel industries
• Climate mitigation or adaptation
• Reducing the national debt

Senator Whitehouse spoke at length about this legislation on the Senate floor in introducing it. Video of his remarks can be seen here, and text is available here. Senator Whitehouse re-introduced an updated version of his proposal in May 2015, which raises the initial tax level slightly, to $45 per ton of CO2.

Congressman John B. Larson (D-CT)

Rep. John B. Larson, an 8th-term representative from Hartford, introduced his American Energy Security Trust Fund Act in August 2008 with twelve co-sponsors. His bill would impose an upstream tax on emissions of carbon dioxide of $15/ton with the level increasing by at least $10/ton annually. CTC estimates this trajectory would reduce U.S. CO2 emissions by 1/3 within a decade. Larson proposes a tax shift, using carbon tax revenue primarily to rebate payroll taxes.  Here is CTC’s commentary on the Larson bill and here is the bill.  Larson sponsored and kicked off CTC’s 2008 House briefing on Carbon Taxes.

Former Public Officials

George P. Shultz, former Secretary of State

Mr. Shultz, U.S. Secretary of Labor under Pres. Nixon (1969-70), Treasury Secretary under Presidents Nixon and Ford (1972-74), and Secretary of State under Pres. Reagan (1982-89), a consummate member of the Washington establishment, co-chairs a task force at Stanford that is urging Republicans to support a carbon tax. (See Stanford’s George Shultz on energy: It’s personal, Stanford Report, July 2012).

Following is an excerpt from his op-ed, How to Gain a Climate Consensus, in the Washington Post, Sept. 5, 2007:

The use of economic incentives (caps and trading rights, and carbon taxes) is essential to avoid disastrously high costs of control. The cap-and-trade system has been highly successful in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions by electricity utilities in the United States. That system relies on a scientifically valid and accepted emission-measurement system used by a clearly identified and homogeneous set of utilities. Fortunately, such a careful system of measurement exists for a viable greenhouse gas regimen. The product of collaboration between the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, these standards for accounting and reporting greenhouse gases should be duly understood and adopted. Even with clear units of account, however, large problems arise as the coverage and heterogeneity of the system grow. And for trading across borders, the system needs to be accepted among the trading partners. Scams are easy to imagine. No nation should be allowed to trade without a verifiable, transparent system of measuring and monitoring of reductions, and holding emitters accountable. In many respects, a straight-out carbon tax is simpler and likelier to produce the desired result. If the tax were offset by cuts elsewhere to make it revenue-neutral, acceptability would be enhanced.

Gregory Mankiw, former Chair, President’s Council of Economic Advisers

Click here for links to the many pro-carbon tax articles and blog posts by President George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, 2003-2005.  Mankiw, who teaches at Harvard, is the convener of the “Pigou Club” which he describes as an elite group of of economists and pundits who support taxing pollution instead of productive activity.

Lawrence Lindsey, former Director of the National Economic Council  and Assistant to the President on Economic Policy under President George W. Bush

Recommending permanent tax cuts, Mr. Lindsey also recommends a “greenhouse emissions tax” as the source of funding. “Longer term, however, spending cuts or a new source of revenue would be needed. Given the agenda of the incoming administration, the best source of such funds would be a greenhouse emissions tax.” (From Lawrence Lindsey Joins the Schumpeter Club, Capital Commerce, in U.S. News & World Report, December 30, 2008.)

William Ruckelhaus, former Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

According to Grist Magazine, Ruckelhaus favors a carbon tax over cap-and-trade, since a carbon tax like cap-and-trade would rely upon market forces to determine where reductions should occur, but government administration would be much simpler. “It has the desired effect … It moves consumption toward less carbon-intensive activities. It does everything a cap-and-trade system does, but it’s about ten times simpler. And about one-tenth as popular, which is why we don’t have it.” (Obama’s Preferred Bill: EPA’s first administrator is bullish on Obama, but not cap-and-trade, Grist, December 29, 2008.)