BARNES, Peter & McKIBBEN, Bill (2009), ‘A Simple Market Mechanism to Clean Up Our Economy’, Solutions for a Sustainable and Desirable Future, 1 (1), 30-38: Jan 14, 2009, online at: https://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/
The problem of global climate change is far more severe and immediate than we understood a few years ago, the authors argue. As the newest scientific data demonstrate, we have a narrow and fast-closing window in which to reduce carbon loads in the atmosphere. In order to do so, two things need to happen: first, the passage of dramatic legislation in the United States so that the largest source of the greenhouse effect begins to clean up its act; second, the subsequent rapid adoption of a powerful international accord that experts currently consider impossible. This will likely require the elimination of coal and tar sands as energy sources. According to Barnes (Senior fellow at the Tomales Bay Institute in Point Reyes Station, California) and McKibben (Founder of the international climate campaign 350.org and scholar in residence at Middlebury College), this paper offers a game-changing political solution: create a trust to manage the sale of a declining number of carbon permits within the U.S., with dividends from the trust distributed equally to all Americans. The dividends would be wired monthly to bank accounts until the country solves its climate crisis. The advantage of this simple, market-based mechanism is that it creates a level playing field for clean technologies, avoids giveaways to industries with political clout, and assures broad, long-term political support for emission reductions. Using the U.S. as a model, world organizations could create a similar international system that would cap carbon globally and distribute revenue to each nation in proportion to its population and developmental needs.
