To meet local climate goals, we need a national price on carbon
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| The authors (left and third from left) and other Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers meet with Rep. Gerry Connolly (right) in 2018. |
By Sarah Karush and George Kralovec
Fairfax County recently developed a blueprint to cut local greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and reach carbon neutrality by 2050. Now there are signs that Congress is ready to match those ambitions on a national scale.
Bold climate action is a central piece of President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, which congressional Democrats are attempting to pass via budget reconciliation in order to avoid a Republican filibuster.
It’s a messy process but it’s the best chance we’ve had in over a decade to correct course and avoid the most dire climate scenarios.
Congress is considering a number of climate policies, and we will need a combination of them to meet our national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the most essential policy, in the view of Citizens’ Climate Lobby volunteers like us, is a robust price on carbon.
What is a carbon price?
Whether you call it a carbon tax or a corporate polluter fee, the idea of a carbon price is simple: It’s a fee levied on fossil fuels as they enter the economy.
This price flows through the economy, giving businesses and consumers an incentive to use less dirty energy and stimulating the development and adoption of clean energy. Ideally, the fee rises at a steady, predictable rate, allowing businesses and individuals to plan for the future.
Revenue from the carbon price can be used to fund other climate initiatives or to help communities that are dependent on fossil fuel jobs or have been disproportionately impacted by climate change or air pollution. We believe that at least part of the money should be distributed to households to offset any rising costs for low and middle-income Americans as the nation weans itself off dirty energy.
A carbon price can go hand in hand with a carbon border adjustment, a system of import fees on carbon-intensive goods from countries that don’t have their own carbon price. Such a mechanism would protect American jobs and push all our trading partners to implement robust climate policies of their own.
An idea with growing support
Although President Biden has not specifically called for a carbon price in the reconciliation package, more and more senators have been voicing support for the idea. This week [Oct. 18], Sen. Mark Warner joined that group, tweeting that “a corporate pollution fee would help … pay for President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and [address] climate change without increasing taxes on hardworking Americans.”
Sen. Warner’s statement is significant. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he has a key role to play in the development of a carbon pricing provision for the reconciliation bill.
Sen. Warner is not the first member of Virginia’s congressional delegation to get behind a price on carbon. Rep. Gerry Connolly is an original cosponsor of the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2021, a carbon fee bill that would use 100 percent of the revenue for monthly dividends to Americans. A total of 87 representatives have signed on to that bill, indicating strong support for carbon pricing in the House.
Boosting local climate efforts
A national carbon price would give Fairfax County’s own climate efforts a real chance at success.
Beginning last year, the two of us served as members of a large working group that developed an ambitious blueprint for slashing greenhouse gas emissions in the county. The Board of Supervisors adopted the Community-wide Energy and Climate Action Plan (CECAP) at its September meeting.
The CECAP lays out an ambitious set of climate change mitigation goals, strategies, and suggested actions for individuals, businesses, and the county government. If implemented in full, they could get our community most of the way toward carbon neutrality by 2050.
Just how those ideas will get implemented, however, is an open question. The county lacks the authority to compel residents and private entities to adopt most of the recommendations, so they will likely remain voluntary. Even in a climate-conscious community like ours, it’s difficult to imagine the majority of individuals and businesses altruistically cutting emissions on the required scale.
A national carbon price, however, would change the equation. Once in place, many of the voluntary actions outlined in the county plan would become rational economic decisions. For example, when natural gas has a rising fee attached to it, it will be easier to persuade Dominion Energy to add more clean energy to the grid or talk homeowners into installing electric heat pumps and water heaters.
Our local leaders understand this too. In the county’s federal legislative agenda, the Board of Supervisors calls on Congress to adopt carbon pricing. Carbon fees are also among the recommendations to federal and state officials included in CECAP.
Help push carbon pricing over the finish line
The reconciliation bill represents a unique opportunity to meet the climate challenge and give some teeth to local efforts in Fairfax County and elsewhere. Depending on the outcome of the 2022 midterm elections, we may not get another chance until catastrophic impacts are locked in.
With so much at stake, we urge all our Fairfax County neighbors to add their voices in support of a commonsense price on carbon today.
Sarah Karush lives in Holmes Run Acres and is co-leader of the Fairfax County chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL). George Kralovec lives in Canterbury Woods and is CCL’s liaison to Rep. Gerry Connolly and co-leader of CCL’s nationwide Climate and Security Action Team.
Really excellent work, you two. Indeed, while climate change will heavily impact Virginia, Virginia alone lacks the political clout to lead the nations of our planet to climate survival. The United States of American, however, does possess that clout. And the real world economics of carbon pricing and carbon border adjustments is that path to get there.
So you want to raise the price of a commodity artificially far above the market price in order to compel consumers to purchase technology that is otherwise not competitive on price? That's going to be really popular with the lower income brackets. And if the energy producers continue to purchase carbon fuel because the renewables don't provide enough energy who will pocket the windfall of the artificial price – the suppliers or is it going to the government? I'm sure it sounds good to you in a conference room but you might want to trying pitching your plan to some people in the real world who would be paying for it – maybe try a gas station or grocery store on Columbia Pike where people are face to face with increasing prices.
I wouldn't say that a carbon tax artificially raises the price of a commodity, rather it makes the price more accurately reflect the true cost of fossil fuels to environment and society. Their price is currently kept artificially low because these costs are externalized and because of subsidies given to the fossil fuel industry.
A carbon tax does not hurt working families if the revenue is returned to households in some form. The carbon tax in British Columbia had such a mechanism and became very popular even among conservatives. This is why it was eventually adopted nationwide in Canada.
If Biden's Build Back Better plan is adopted, everyone will be driving electric cars in a few years, and nobody will have to worry about the price of gasoline at the pump. The electricity needed for their car will cost half as much (or less) than the equivalent amount of gasoline.
Do you have any idea how power plants generate electricity in this area? The majority of power production comes from burning natural gas and coal – not wind or solar. The plan discussed in this post will raise the price of those generating materials considerably and Dominion undoubtedly will pass that increase onto the consumer (with the General Assembly's blessing, I might add).
The current electric power grid will not support having all electric cars. No one is really doing much to solve this problem which includes transporting the electricity from far away regions and building up the local power structure to handle power for automobiles. Democrats think an extra tax will solve anything, and it won't. It will just reduce our buying power and have everything cost more.
After the significant impediment on President Biden's climate deal, it's nice to see local efforts advancing climate policies. Hopefully, we'll see an improvement on the national level soon as well.
Thank you for your work for advocacy for national policy, as well as participation in county level working groups on pursuing climate solutions. Putting a price on pollution makes so much sense. There are clean alternatives that are winning too slowly because they aren't on a level playing field with the entrenched dirty energy sources. You don't get to touch on health benefits of clean air in this piece, but fossil fuel burning is making us sick – for free – and I'm angry.
The County Zoning allows for large single family homes, the size of a small apartment buildings. As long as this continues I am convinced that Fairfax's seriousness about our carbon footprint is all talk and no action. The lack of tree preservation and ongoing destruction of our tree canopy just adds to the excess squandering of our natural resources to protect our environment.
BoS if you are serious about reducing greenhouse gases then you must start at your own front door. Stop these huge McMansions from becoming the signature of Annandale. No one needs 20' columns framing their front doors except Dynasty wanna bees!
Clueless…these people think energy comes from the energy fairy…no sense in even debating these people…they are of the same ilk that said in 1997 in 10 years NY would be under water…please go away…an industrial nation needs multiple sources of energy..and until we use more nuclear and develop hydrogen we need fossil fuel….
There never has been a free lunch and "clean" energy is not free nor clean. The batteries for the cars require significant mining and water usage, they don't recycle, the blades of the turbines made in China – don't recycle, and the solar cells all come from China and they too don't easily recycle. Our country has already dramatically reduced emissions while China and India are still building new coal plants. Due to the high cost of oil and shortages in the EU – they had to restart their coal power plants. Right now 2% of the drivers are driving Electric cars. Better choice is Hybrid – great milage and low cost. The 3rd world wants $750 BILLION per year to pay for their part of the clean climate efforts. Sometimes an alternative like Hydrogen cars, nuclear power plants should be more aggressively considered. Easier to build and recycle.
The French tried carbon pricing a few years ago. Remember the episode with "yellow jackets"? Emmanuel Macron finally had to withdraw the plan. the impact on middle and lower income folks is too great. Use the proceeds to buy down Social Security. Social Security is already eating into the trust fund. It would work as a wage subsidy. Don't give the money to the politicians; they'll spend it on boondogles. Let well heeled consumers spend for innovative energy saving products and services which will come down in price e.g. electric vehicles.