Carbon Tax - Support

Support

Former US Vice President Al Gore strongly backed a carbon tax in his book, Earth in the Balance, but this became a political liability after the Republicans attacked him as a "dangerous fanatic". In 2000, when Gore ran for president, one commentator labeled Gore's carbon tax proposal a "central planning solution" harking back to "the New Deal politics of his father."

Former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker suggested (February 6, 2007) that "it would be wiser to impose a tax on oil, for example, than to wait for the market to drive up oil prices."

Climatologist James E. Hansen has argued in support of a carbon tax. A number of businesses and business leaders also support a carbon tax. These include:

• FedEx CEO Fred Smith;
• James Owens, CEO of Caterpillar;
• and Paul Anderson, CEO and Chairman of Duke Energy.

Monica Prasad, a Northwestern University sociologist, wrote about Denmark's carbon tax in the New York Times in 2008. In her view, the Danish carbon tax served as an example of how to reduce emissions in the US. Prasad argued, however, that a critical component for Denmark's success in reducing carbon emissions from 1990–2005 was that the tax revenues from the carbon tax were dedicated to subsidies for firms to use for alternative, environmentally cleaner sources of energy.