Events

Charles Komanoff: Getting the Price Right: The Case for Carbon Taxation

Charging American businesses and individuals a price to emit carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential to reduce U.S. emissions quickly enough to prevent atmospheric concentrations of CO2 from reaching an irreversible tipping point. Itâ€™s a bedrock economic principle that prices of goods and services should reflect ("internalize" as the economists say) all of the societal costs (such as pollution) that production of the goods or services imposes on society. Yet the prices of gasoline, electricity and fuels in general donâ€™t include many of these societal costs, particularly their impact on global warming.

By Aaron Donovan

8:30 PM EDT on March 14, 2007

Charging American businesses and individuals a price to emit carbon dioxide (CO₂) is essential to reduce U.S. emissions quickly enough to prevent atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ from reaching an irreversible tipping point. Itâ€™s a bedrock economic principle that prices of goods and services should reflect (“internalize” as the economists say) all of the societal costs (such as pollution) that production of the goods or services imposes on society. Yet the prices of gasoline, electricity and fuels in general donâ€™t include many of these societal costs, particularly their impact on global warming.

In this lecture, Charles Komanoff will argue that the rapid transformation we need from a fossil fuels-based energy system to reliance on energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable fuels simply wonâ€™t happen without carbon taxes sending accurate price signals.

Aaron Donovan

Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.

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