In response to widespread concerns about a general increase in the temperature of the Earth's climate, a number of tax jurisdictions have proposed or imposed global warming taxes intended to generate revenues to mitigate the effects of the human activities contributing to global warming or to discourage such activities.
The idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise government revenue, has a long history. The British economist Arthur Pigou advocated such corrective taxes to deal with pollution in the early 20th century. In his honor, economics textbooks now call them “ Pigovian taxes.”
Using a Pigovian tax to address global warming is also an old idea. It was proposed as far back as 1992 by Martin S. Feldstein, once chief economist to Ronald Reagan, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. [1]
In response to widespread concerns about a general increase in the temperature of the Earth's climate, a number of tax jurisdictions have proposed or imposed global warming taxes intended to generate revenues to mitigate the effects of the human activities contributing to global warming or to discourage such activities.
The idea of using taxes to fix problems, rather than merely raise government revenue, has a long history. The British economist Arthur Pigou advocated such corrective taxes to deal with pollution in the early 20th century. In his honor, economics textbooks now call them “ Pigovian taxes.”
Using a Pigovian tax to address global warming is also an old idea. It was proposed as far back as 1992 by Martin S. Feldstein, once chief economist to Ronald Reagan, on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. [1]