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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No, no, no. The system will be adjusted down the line to ensure the ‘right’ level of tax. Government’s love of taxation is one of the reasons we are in this CAGW mess. I get McKitrick ‘s thinking but NO thanks. Finally, let’s get real. The extra co2 has led to a greening of the biosphere. Co2 output should be subsidized not taxed. That’s the scheme we need. I won’t be happy until we reach at least 600ppm in the atmosphere.
“CO2 fertilisation has increased maximum foliage cover across the globe’s warm, arid environments”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/abstract
Analysis of trends in fused AVHRR and MODIS NDVI data for 1982–2006: Indication for a CO2 fertilization effect….
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gbc.20027/abstract
A fix for scientific uncertainty. That says all that you need to know. Of course the worthless climate models are also brought in for good measure.
“I propose instead that the best way to proceed would be to put a small tax on CO₂ emissions, and tie its subsequent evolution to a suitable measure of atmospheric temperatures. If temperatures go up, so does the tax. If they do not, the tax does not change.”
“Does not change” in case of cooling is not good enough, it is a horrible one-way street. If temperature of tropical mid troposphere happens to decrease, so should the tax. Below a certain point it gets to zero. The big question is what happens next? Turn said tax to subsidizing CO₂ emissions?
“The IPCC predicts a warming rate in the tropical troposphere due to greenhouse gas emissions of between 0.2 to 1.2 degrees Celsius per decade throughout this century.”
Fact check.
RSS TMT (Temperature Middle Troposphere) between 20N & 20S has an overall trend of 0.09°C/decade since measurements started in January 1979, less than half of the lower bound of the IPCC’s prediction. For the last 2 decades it is 0.02°C/decade, one tenth of it. Their upper bound is already 60 times higher than fact. Funniest of all, the last decade has seen a -0.13°C/decade cooling.
Well said and bravo. NO, no, no. They will make amendments and cabon tax people not matter what happens to temperatures. Sheeesh. I think McKitrick is being a bit naive.
This paper by GWPF gave me an idea. Markets can efficiently price things. Oil futures for example. When trying to figure any costs of manmade CO2 emissions, we might ask, what does the money say? I mean in a true capitalistic way. I am not talking about ‘made by some government’ markets. Perhaps one example of what the money is saying is, disappointing sales of Solar Panels. The money says no, unless you give me a government subsidy. I understand there could be many problems trying to quantifying what the money is saying. However, the power of a markets to organize resources is perhaps something to consider.
Monty Python – Tax Thingie
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmOHx5Ftez8&w=480&h=360]
CACCA is a statist’s dream: the chance to tax breathing.
@eliza, @Tom in Florida –
Right on!! NO COMPROMISE!!!!!!!!!!
ANY tax will grow out of control if not strictly controlled and limits set on it that are red lines that can’t be crossed – ant the more so if the tax is based on some irrational premise, like carbon. Government and taxes are like fire – useful for limited purposes, but they will burn your house down if you don’t apply DRACONIAN controls over them.
How about making things interesting, as any gambler might say, and make it a negative tax when temperatures fall so that heavy energy consuming industries then get nicely subsidised to produce more CO2 etc when temperatures fall. If nothing else they will then produce so much CO2 to the extent that it should prove or disprove that the Keeling curve is in any way affected by man released C02 or simply a lagging indicator of temperature.
“… and used to pay for income tax reductions,… ”
Assuming that “income tax reductions” means lower income tax REVENUE, looks like this is intentional sabotage of the economy.
TAXES KILL JOBS. (for every gov’t job created, 2 private sector jobs are lost)
So do burdensome regulations (we must fight BOTH — no false dilemmas for us!) They’ve admitted they know that. The Fantasy Science Club either does not care OR….. that is their goal.
EW3 says:
July 4, 2013 at 11:59 am
“Why do I not even read anything from an organization named the Global Warming Policy Foundation ?”
Time to broaden your knowledge base. GWPF is listed as “skeptical views” by this site.The science here is great, but CAGW is about politics. Learn what the socialists are doing to the world economies. This fight will be won by the capitalists once people start to understand the costs vs benefits. It is, and has always been about the money,control, and power. GWPW should be mandatory reading for all elected officials, including the world leaders especially Obama.
I am with everyone who are against such a tax, period.
It is a tax on, amongst other things::
1 economic development, and future competitiveness.
2 jobs and job security.
3. life styles, life style choices and betterment
4.the cost of food production, and hence on what you can afford to eat and how much.
5. being able to run your car
6. beinga able to afford to heat your home to the level and comfort that you desire.
It leads to increasing misery and in extremes even death.
It should be resisted by all possible legitimate means.
Well actually this isn’t a bad idea. It would mean the science would be assessed every day by a bunch of hard headed investors with real skin in the game. At the moment it is held hostage by environmental “activists” and wooly headed political types with no incentive to get it right and every incentive to get the answer they find most convenient.
However the scheme has one fatal flaw. There is no mechanism for ending it once it becomes clear that there is actually no climate problem. Once billions of dollars get invested you can’t easily change the rules, especially if there is a futures market involved. There needs to be an explicit mechanism for winding up the scheme it built into it from the outset. Otherwise when it becomes apparent that CO2 isn’t really a problem then this proposal turns into nothing more than a casino for betting on the weather propped up by compulsary taxes.
No.
At first glance this appears a flawed approach.
This Whole thing is not a bet about who is correct.
The real issue is to get the data right first… and work out if there has been significant change or if it is currently occurring.
Then, we better be pretty sure of the cause.
If indeed it is predominantly human driven, we had better come up with a far less blunt instrument than increasing the cost of energy across the board…..While thousands of huge cars idling in traffic is ridiculous, pricing things like aluminium and steel smelters offshore is more ridiculous: the world has a certain demand (hey, to build windmills!) And someone somewhere is going to do it.
And, last but not least, the tax would be awfully vulnerable to data manipulation and more so to regulatory and legislative changes.
There are many reasons NOT to do this as has been pointed out in comments. However, the proposal puts the alarmists on the defensive and could force them into some blithering loops and whoops about why this can’t be done, further exposing them for the phonies they are.
@Mikeyj –
Unfortunately,the first tenet of los alarmistas’ belief system is, See no contrary evidence, hear no contrary evidence, speak no contrary evidence. They simply believe it doesn’t exist even when it has kicked them in the pancreas. They’re being trampled by facts but they’re so anesthetized by their faith that they can’t feel their heads being stomped on. You could put them in a rubber room with the walls plastered with documents proving the idiocy of AGW and subject them to unceasing broadcasts of facts at 140 decibels and they won’t back off.
The real irony here is that, unlike the sheeple following him down the garden path, der Fuehrer knows full well that AGW is false, but he’s not going to let go of it because it’s his primary pretext for creating the totalitarian state he has set out to impose on America. Hitler and Goebbels would have been proud, and Stalin maybe even prouder.
This looks to me like a proposal with no future. A tax that is permitted to decline as an index temperature declines will not be accepted by the people who think CO2 induced warming is a problem — they have a belief that the “missing heat” will be accumulating somewhere. I doubt that the Democratic majority in the Senate would pass any CO2 tax that had an income tax rate reduction attached to it.
I’m with you Noblesse. It drags all the evidence out in the open and relies on actual evidence. There’s some sleight of hand here. McKitrick is forcing them to re-evaluate their models. Hopefully this includes an ability to distinguish Nature’s CO2 from Mann’s.. oops.. Man’s.
Since CO2 climate sensitivity looks like it will be at or below 1C, there isn’t a need to tax air at all.
Why don’t all countries abolish all: death, excise, income, withholding and corporate taxes, abolish the IRS and replace it with ONE 17% Federal consumption tax?
In addition, all countries pass a balance budget amendment that prohibits central governments from spending more than total tax revenues.
This would: save corporations 100’s billions that could be used to increase wages and grow their businesses, increase saving rates, which would increase capital reserves and decrease interest rates, would greatly increase living standards, would save $100’s of billions in expensive filing fees and complicated trust fund costs, would greatly reduce the size/scope of governments and would make it very difficult to avoid taxes among many other things.
Imagine such a world…. perchance to dream….ay, there’s the rub….
Ian H says:
July 4, 2013 at 4:32 pm
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What if the globe continues to warm, and does so simply because of natural variation and/or rebound from the LIA?
Conceptually, why should we be taxed for a consequence (ie., measured warming) which might not have been brought about by manmade CO2 emissions (or other anthropogenic cause), but simply due to nature?
The concept is flawed. First there needs to be firm and definitive proof of manmade warming. Second, there needs to be firm and definitive proof that this warming is bad. Third, there needs to be firm and definitive proof that the warming and/or the bad effect can be allieviated if carbon (or CO2 emissions) are taxed in the manner proposed.
Don’t be suckered. Once a a tax is introduced, government expands and spends the money on other causes and finds it very difficult to reign back the tax and wean itself off the teet of public finance.
If you must play Wall Street games, the only sensible ploy is to pay major CO2 emitters with options on farm and forest crops. Since you’re feeding more plants, you should get some monetary benefit from the plants you’re feeding.
However, sane people shouldn’t be playing Wall Street games at all. When you mess around with Satan, Satan always wins.
SAMURAI says:
July 4, 2013 at 5:08 pm
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Certainly something to consider. But in Europe, we already have consumption tax (VAT, IVA) set at between 17 to 24%, so I guess your figure of 17% is unrealistically low. But then again, government in Europe is very much over bloated and needs to be drastically cut back.
There needs to be an honest and forthright debate on tax and the size of the state and government spending. This debate is long overdue.
Howzabout we just QUIT TAXING US TO DEATH!?
That’s a simple idea, too – but with no opportunity for graft and corruption.
Great idea! It allows governments to steal from the working folks, and speculators will get rich trading carbon futures. What could possibly go wrong? /sarc off
This proposal isn’t new but it needs to be shot with a silver bullet and buried at a crossroads with a fresh sapling stake through its heart.