UN has pointed out in a climate change report published on Oct.8th that the issue of climate change has to be addressed now before an irreversible
threshold, and in order to contain the global warming, putting a price on
carbon emission is one of the core ideas that needs to be researched.
Putting a price on carbon emission is also one of the most important theories
from Dr. William D. Nordhaus, the Nobel Price of Economic winner and Economics
Professor at Yale University. Nordhaus’s research indicates that the most
effective way to solve greenhouse gas emission is to tax the carbon emission.
One of the authors of the published UN report, Drew Schindell (professor
at Duke University) said that although people think the price putting on the
emission is too high, this is still an efficient way to include emission into the
economy regime.
In a recent published report by OECD, researchers stated that the
average carbon emission price in 42 economic entities is 8 dollars/ton, which
is much lower than the price that required to fix climate change.
So far there are more than 45 nations begin to price the carbon
emission, including China, EU and California, USA. These nations are doing such
in two ways, 1) increase fossil fuel tax, 2) issue carbon emission allowance
and trading scheme. Although there are multiple factors that may impede the
pricing of carbon emission, including politics, and there are also people
arguing that a carbon tax may bring much more negative impacts to the economy
such as increasing burden to people by raising the cost of transportation or
utilities.
Researchers from Columbia University estimated that if the carbon price
increases to 50 dollars/ton then by 2030 the average US utility bill of each family
will increase by 22%, and US Tradition Fund also pointed out in a 2014 report
that a 37 dollars/ton carbon price will lower the US economy output by 2.5
trillion dollars by 2030.
UN secretary-general
Antonio Guterres believed that instead of the short-term loss, the world should
focus on the long-term loss brought by climate change. Guterres said UN is
going to prioritize climate change and address this issue in multiple future
meetings.