No doubt most Basic Income News readers are aware of an interesting intersection where the arguments for basic income overlap with the arguments on how to best control global warming.
In his book, “Storms of my Grandchildren,” climate scientist James Hansen proposes a global carbon tax with the proceeds to be distributed to everyone (he calls it fee-and-dividend).
In other words, Hansen sees a worldwide basic income as a major component in solving one of our most important environmental challenges.
How to get there is the question.
In his book, Hansen proposes that the different national governments each implement a fee-and-dividend system. The fossil fuel fees collected by each country would be distributed as carbon dividends to the residents within their own borders.
Although it might have some effect on a few nations in the short-term, such an approach is unlikely to achieve the desired long-term results.
Nations with limited fossil fuel production but large populations would only have small dividends to distribute, and so little incentive to participate.
Those nations with large fossil fuel industries and small populations would find the temptation to produce and sell untaxed product on the black market attractive.
A better approach might be to bypass the national governments and go directly to the people of the world.
I have posted a petition on Care2 calling for a global carbon tax that takes that approach.
The petition is addressed to the secretary-general of the United Nations and calls for a worldwide referendum on the question.
Such a worldwide vote would be difficult to achieve but far from impossible. Don’t forget that the U.N. organized and ran an election in Kampuchea when much of that nation was still controlled by the Khmer Rouge.
Here in British Columbia, we have a carbon tax of $30 per tonne.
According to Wikipedia, the burning of fossil fuels produces about 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the world each year.
A carbon tax of $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide would therefore raise about $900 billion per year.
Assuming there are about 5 billion adult human beings on the planet, the carbon tax proposed in my petition would provide each of them with a basic income of roughly $180 per year – effectively doubling the incomes of hundreds of millions.
No doubt most Basic Income News readers can point out many advantages of such a global carbon dividend. However, I would like to identify two that seem to me, as a layperson, most important.
The first would be simplicity. It would be relatively easy to identify those who are eligible to receive the benefit (age 18 and over), which would lessen the possibilities for corruption.
The second is that it would not be charity. The lives and livelihoods of every human being are being put in danger by global warming. The proposed carbon dividend would therefore be in partial compensation for that risk.
Such a global fee-and-dividend system would not solve all the world’s problems – but it would be a step in the right direction. It would help us to get a handle on global warming and global inequality – two of our biggest problems.
It would also open the door for reform and democratization of the United Nations (“No taxation without representation”).
The petition seeks to get 100 million names. This is modeled on the Swiss precedent, where 100,000 signatures on a petition are enough to get an important initiative taken to referendum. The world’s population (7 billion and rising) is about 1,000 times larger than that of Switzerland (8 million).
I don’t really expect the Care2 petition to achieve that number. I do hope, however, that some international organization will pick up the idea and run with it.
You can view the petition (and hopefully sign it) at: www.thepetitionsite.com/286/384/042/petition-for-a-referendum-on-a-global-carbon-tax
It is far more important to actually make the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy than to provide a basic income for everybody. The United States is both a fascist state with government of by and for too big to fail international corporations and still the most powerful nation in the world both economically and militarily. Those too big to fail international corporations controlling the United States very much includes somewhat over a dozen too big to fail fossil fuel firms. The only way they will tolerate a carbon tax AND/OR having their product replaced by renewable energy is if the whole deal is made even more profitable to them than business as usual. Those too big to fail corporations also include the military industrial complex firms that make the arms that make the United States the most powerful nation militarily. They also will demand their piece of the action. Any corporation able to make military aircraft can also learn how to make smart electric grid parts, wind turbines, and solar power systems. So it might be possible to divert some money from military pork to some means to harness renewable energy. It will be possible to use much of the revenue from a carbon tax (CO2eq to account for other greenhouse gases please)to finance leases of equipment to utilities, but lease payments from utilities must be used to buy even more fossil fuel than only that replaced by the leased equipment. When about 3/4 of the tax base emissions are gone, it will be necessary to add a tax on energy regardless of source to the emissions tax for revenue needed to continue buying renewable energy equipment as replacement parts and to finish buying fossil fuel as mineral rights, which will take at least 200 years, or maybe even forever.
Grace Adams, I believe you have too negative a view of the power structure in the United States (and the world, for that matter). The global fossil fuel fee/carbon dividend as proposed in my global carbon tax petition would create an enormous new market for renewable energy sources. It would take a unusually modest corporate executive to say that his or her corporation was incapable of taking advantage of those new markets.
Keith, thanks for this. You may have noticed that a US Congressman, Van Hollen, has just proposed a Cap and Dividend.