Establishing a $15 per ton carbon tax that increases by 3.5% each year until capped at $80 per ton

On May 11th, 2017, the director of National Intelligence testified to the U.S. House of Representatives about the greatest threat facing the United States. It wasn"t terrorism, it wasn"t nuclear weapons, and it wasn"t Russia. It was climate change. Something that poses a threat not only to the existence of our military bases worldwide but to the existence of humanity. And that is why we must address this key issue, but a carbon tax goes about it in exactly the wrong way. First, the impact of establishing a carbon tax on global warming would be negligible. This is true because as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency has previously stated, U.S. action alone will have an inconsequential effect on world CO2 levels. Based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Reports, of the approximately 3 degrees Celsius of global warming that is being projected to occur between now and the end of the century as a result of carbon emissions, the U.S. contribution will only be 0.2 degrees Celsius, or about 7 percent of the total global warming. And this is assuming that no carbon tax is put in place. Carbon dioxide emissions from the rest of the world"primarily driven by rapid emissions growth in developing countries like China, Russia, and India"will be responsible for the other 93 percent of temperature rise. The whole idea of a carbon tax is to incentivize companies to lower their carbon emissions and therefore mitigate the effects of global warming; but in no way will we be able to do this if the best that any carbon tax in the United States could ever hope to achieve would not even make a dent in the amount of global warming on the planet. Furthermore, my opponent may try to argue that if the U.S. leads in reducing emissions, the rest of the world would follow suit. But this is clearly not the case. Despite actions taken by the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, the developing world has massive expansions planned to increase coal consumption. According to a recent report from the World Resources Institute, there are plans to build nearly 1,200 coal-fired power plants in 59 different countries totaling over 1.4 million megawatts. Also, developing countries want access to cheap, reliable electricity, especially since many areas do not even have access to electricity, and have more pressing environmental needs. It is simply wishful thinking to assume that these countries would follow America's lead and curb economic growth to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Second, implementing a carbon tax would hurt American-made products, and this is true because it decreases trade competition, while promoting businesses to move abroad to avoid paying the tax. According to the Citizens" Climate Lobby, for the first year that a $15 per metric ton of CO2 carbon tax is implemented, the cost of gasoline would increase by 16 cents per gallon, natural gas by 19 cents per therm, and electricity by 0.6 to 1.1 cents per kilowatt-hour. Without a dividend, this price increase, which would extend to goods and services, as well as individual energy needs, would generate adverse effects on the economy due to decreased spending and demand for American goods. Thus, a carbon tax would jeopardize the affordability of the most widely used and available energy sources, and the result would be a ripple effect across the economy that would decrease the competitiveness of America's global exports. For these reasons, it is imperative that we stand against a carbon tax, in the interest of ourselves, our families, our communities, but most importantly, our future.