PRESS RELEASE
New Paper Proposes Cost-Effective Climate Policy That Gets Around Key Scientific Uncertainties
London: A new paper, published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, proposes a radical new climate policy approach that offers to be the most cost-effective means of curbing CO2 emissions, while automatically adjusting the stringency of the policy to the severity of the problem.
The paper‘An Evidence-Based Approach To Pricing CO2 Emissions’ written by Professor Ross McKitrick (University of Guelph, Canada) proposes to link the level of a tax on CO2 emissions to temperatures in the tropical troposphere, and to create a 30-year futures market for tax-exemption certificates. Investors would then have long term certainty about the carbon price, and the future tax rates would incorporate all known evidence of the likely path of global warming.
If started at a low level and used to pay for income tax reductions, McKitrick’s carbon tax will be economically beneficial even if enacted unilaterally.
“If the climate models are correct, the carbon tax will rise significantly as CO2 levels rise; but if the temperatures remain stagnant or low, then the tax and its economic cost will remain low too,” said Professor McKitrick. “Either way we get the right outcome, and the market will reward industries and investors who make the most objective use of available science in forming long term plans.”
“The temperature-based procedure that McKitrick outlines in his paper would provide a strong incentive for more thorough and objective analysis of possible future developments in the climate system. It thus offers a blueprint for an evidence-based low-cost emissions policy that would also promote the cause of better understanding,” Professor David Henderson writes in the foreword to the GWPF paper.
Full paper is available here
UPDATE: Ross McKitrick writes in via email.
There was an article in the UK Register and a blog post by Marcel Crok. The comment threads at Bishop Hill and Watts Up revealed a lot of confusion about what I was talking about, so I have prepared a detailed response.
Also, a cartoonist in the audience (Josh) made a fun set of visual notes of my talk.
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Why do I not even read anything from an organization named the Global Warming Policy Foundation ?
Why price carbon at all? Another namby-pamby concession to alarmists. This is a discussion that should be ended pronto.
What about seniors who do not pay income tax and are the ones dying of cold through “fuel poverty”?
First, the tropical troposphere has been actually cooling a bit, so prices go down before you start?
Second, CO2 is PLANT FOOD and cannot and does not warm the climate.
How does this make unaffordable energy affordable to the Brits that die each year from regional cold? Not that cold weather is a uniquely British problem.
How does this make unaffordable energy affordable to emerging economies? This amounts to a global energy tax and does nothing else that is actually useful. All the costs are paid by consumers including consumers who can’t pay their own way. This is just another transfer of wealth scheme. Somebody’s inner socialist is peaking out.
I have a lot of respect for Ross McKitrick, but this strikes me as an approach that could go sideways a lot of different ways.
For starters, no government has ever met a tax they didn’t like, and more importantly, didn’t try to grow. There’s enough manipulation of temperature records already, do we want to hand government and the scientists who work for government a fiscal incentive to find more warming?
Worse, if we did experience warming, but due to completely different causes, we’d not only be taxing the wrong thing, but those who benefit from the wrong tax would be highly resistant to changing it and would lobby hard to discredit the real science. Kinda like we have now, but with a lot more financial incentive and an even more entrenched beauracracy to maintain it.
proposes to link the level of a tax on CO2 emissions to temperatures in the tropical troposphere
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ROTFL….less than zero
Brilliant, base an Eco-tax on an objective sattelite measurement that isn’t adjust to fit the expecation of unproven models! How can the alarmist argue against a system that will increase taxes automaticaly as the globe warms, and how can we argue against a tax that decreases as the globe cools as I suspect it will.
so mckittrick and the global warming policy foundation are all for taxing carbon pollution to prevent global warming, eh?
they only question they have is how to perpetrate this fraud ‘fairly’.
way to celebrate independence day!
This, coming from Ross, is probably the best solution possible if one wanted to impose such a system. But given what we know of rent-seeking behavior (and government is the biggest and most coercive rent-seeker), the imposition of such a system will soon be diverted and perverted into something that grows like topsy and is used by politicians to bestow favors and buy votes. The correct approach is to fight this tooth and nail.
Bad idea.
Not only would the proposed “carbon tax” give governments an ongoing excuse to fry the numbers, no legislative body is bound by the acts of previous legislative bodies. Politicians would sooner or later cut the link the tropical tropospheric temperature measurements, and just keep enjoying the revenue, regardless of the economic effects of the tax.
The basic weakness is the assumption that CO2 drives temperature. The tax goes up if temperatures go up. But suppose CO2 has little or nothing to do with temperature. Then this is just a natural swing we find ourselves in. But perhaps it will continue swinging upward for some decades or centuries (e.g., recovery from the LIA). In that case, we will continue to pour ever-increasing amounts of money into reducing CO2 but see no payback for our efforts.
I completed a sample of approximately 40 chemistry and other science text books published in the 50s through the 70s. NONE of them mentioned that CO2 was needed to provide carbon so that plants would grow. All of the books mentioned nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium as the basic elements needed for plant growth [light, water, and temperature:also]. My assumption is that since carbon can not be supplied to plants via the roots, it was not stated as being a plant growth requirement.
Carbon for plants comes from CO2 and only CO2. Without CO2, all plants would die.
Therefore, to properly calculate the pluses and minuses of CO2 for a taxing system, we, as humans on the Planet Earth, need to take into account the benefits of additional CO2 for crop growth.
My thoughts are that a tax credit should be given to anyone [or company] supplying CO2. I personally will eat different foods that produce more CO2 so that I can get this tax credit!
Let us let true science prevail…
This is an attempt to try to please the alarmist somehow or “both” sides. Its far too late for that. Any surrender to the warmists is a complete waste of time and money, especially as there is no discernible warming.due to human activities or C02. It surprises me that Dr Mckritick would even bother especially since it seems he appeard to be quite convinced by now that there is no significant warming if any at all!
“If the climate models are correct, the carbon tax will rise significantly as CO2 levels rise; but if the temperatures remain stagnant or low, then the tax and its economic cost will remain low too,” said Professor McKitrick.
*
This is a contradiction. They are looking at two things (CO2 and temp) pulling in two directions (up and down) and claiming they both warrant taxing if up – even if one is down.
If the temperature is down, they can justify their tax by pointing at the high carbon level. If the temperature is up, they can just point at the temperature. Bingo – you’re taxed either way! No way they are going to say “the carbon level is up, but the temperature is down, therefore it balances out and no tax for you.”
As carbon levels are increasing steadily, without warming, this tax will screw the populace whether there is warming or not. It’s another method of stepping away from the problem they started with in the first place (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming – big alarm, remember?) and ditching it, hoping no one will notice it’s gone, while continuing down the path to dismantling society by taxing it into the ground.
I had the same idea last year. To my way of thinking, it meets the requirements of both sides of the issue. If temperatures go up, as the “consensus” believes, then the tax will go up and work to reign in CO2 levels. If temperatures stay steady or go down, as the “skeptics” believe, then the tax will stay steady or go down.
Personally, I believe the temperatures will stay steady or go down, but this satisfies the precautionary principle because it hedges in case that belief is incorrect.
The other comments about taxing and manipulation of temperature records are legitimate, but if a government is moving towards a carbon tax of any sort, the above approach is, in my opinion, the best way forward.
@EW3 The Global Warming Policy Foundation was set up to be a counter to all the insanity the UK government sadly listens to. You should read them, they are sensible.
If temperatures fall far enough and fast enough, then such a scheme could be extended to offer credits and revenue to people for producing more CO2 in a vain effort to counter the cooling effects of the upcoming Grand Solar Minimum.
go ahead fight this tax. you’ll get regulations instead.
So in this grand scheme of things – who is charging nature for it’s fault in CO2 rising? How are you suppose to tax nature? And to what exact extent does nature contribute to CO2 rising? Who decides? Right – the same morons pushing AGW garbage as per normal. Just tax and that will fix everything. The usual suspects.
Graeme W says:
July 4, 2013 at 1:10 pm
“The other comments about taxing and manipulation of temperature records are legitimate, but if a government is moving towards a carbon tax of any sort, the above approach is, in my opinion, the best way forward.”
No! The best way forward is for no carbon taxes at all! The line is to be drawn at none; no compromises, no excuses, no carbon taxes period. On this we must be firm, once you give even the slightest compromise they will slowly continue to grow and expand it. Why would anyone in their right mind want more government control?
Steven Mosher says:
July 4, 2013 at 1:38 pm
go ahead fight this tax. you’ll get regulations instead
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relax Mosh, it’s not for real
Why, if human CO2 emissions are not causing or significantly contributing measurably to global atmospheric warming, do we need to do anything?
They could also determine each year the height of tax with a random number generator. No observations needed. Much easier if you want Monte Carlo Tax for a non-existent problem.
I would rather tax people based on how cold it is where they live.