Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk

This piece suggests that a carbon tax applied at the source of the carbon supply, the wellhead or the refinery is a better tool to combat global warming than cap and trade schemes. I am no fan of cap and trade as a solution to anything. It's merely a way to apply an indirect cost on producers of carbon emissions.

If governments are serious about taxing carbon, they should apply the tax directly to carbon consumers. The tax should be voted by elected representatives or a direct ballot initiative so the direct pain of carbon taxation is felt by the people and not cast as a 'big oil' or 'big carbon' problem. Let the people decide if a 'save the planet' tax is something they agree with.

Tax dairy and meat products because ruminants produce methane. Tax gasoline and fuel oils and lubricants. Tax fossil fuel produced electricity, but not nuclear, hydro, wind or solar. But if we do, we must insist that the tax goes to ameliorating carbon emissions and nothing else.

Of course, any tax or payment scheme assumes that human activities are the cause of climate change. I doubt it, but the direct consumer carbon tax approach will test the 'consensus' that climate change fanatics claim.