Common Resources

While International Climate Negotiations Continue, the World’s Ninth Largest Economy Takes an Important Step Forward

This post originally appeared on Robert Stavins’s blog, An Economic View of the Environment. A little more than two weeks ago, while some 195 nations prepared to meet in Doha, Qatar, for the Eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an ongoing effort to hammer […]

Substitutes and Complements

At yesterday’s RFF/AEI/Brookings carbon tax conference, the first two speakers correctly emphasized that with the right price in place, we wouldn’t need the panoply of indirect alternative policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as renewable portfolio standards and clean energy subsidies. The following speaker, however, referred to these indirect policies as “complementary.” That characterization […]

Cap-and-Trade, Carbon Taxes, and My Neighbor’s Lovely Lawn

This post originally appeared on Robert Stavins’s blog, An Economic View of the Environment. The recent demise of serious political consideration of an economy-wide U.S. CO2 cap-and-trade system and the even more recent resurgence in interest among policy wonks in a U.S. carbon tax should prompt reflection on where we’ve been, where we are, and […]

Ezra Klein, Grover Norquist, and Carbon Taxes

Ezra Klein reported a fantasy of his in the Washington Post this past weekend. Klein dreamed a tax on carbon dioxide emissions could be part of a bipartisan deal to avoid the fiscal cliff caused in part by the expiring Bush area tax cuts that will lead to higher taxes on two very important components of […]

The Democratic Platform: Green Jobs - Really?

This is part of a series of short posts in which RFF scholars will analyze the environmental plank of the Republican and Democratic Party platforms. This week we’re looking at the Democratic platform. Previous posts analyzed the Republican platform. As with all posts on Common Resources, this and other posts in this series reflect the opinions of the […]

The Republican Platform: Rolling the Dice on Climate

This is part of a series of short posts in which RFF scholars will analyze the environmental plank of the Republican and Democratic Party platforms. This week we’re looking at the Republican platform. Watch next week for a similar series of posts looking at the Democratic platform’s environmental agenda. As with all posts on Common […]

A Fiscal Fix for Climate Policy?

It was a big week for the concept of a carbon tax in Washington. A carbon tax, which combines two politically difficult propositions taxes and climate policy — would not seem to be the most plausible option in the U.S. right now, except for one important feature: it can raise boatloads of revenue. And more […]

The Variability of Potential Revenue from a Carbon Tax

As the federal government looks for ways to address the fiscal challenges posed by large and growing federal deficits, discussions about a carbon tax have quietly emerged to identify a potentially important source of new revenue. The role a carbon tax could play in fiscal policy efforts will depend on how much revenue such a […]

Will A Trans-Regional Carbon Market Go Global?

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced plans for the country’s carbon tax today in Parliament. While Australia’s price on carbon is still struggling to gain public support domestically, elsewhere countries are optimistic about its adoption. The European Union has expressed interest in linking its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) with Australia and will meet to discuss […]

Australia’s Carbon Tax: Insights Into A U.S. Policy?

Australia is about to put a price on carbon emissions. Legislation will be introduced to the Parliament around September 14, and after a failed earlier attempt, this time the policy is highly likely to become law, though the Liberal (conservative) party opposes it. The design of the scheme offers insights for how the U.S. might, […]