C’est le moment pour une taxe carbone

Feb 15, 2016 Kemal Derviş , Karim Foda

WASHINGTON, DC – Au cours des dernières décennies, les prix du pétrole ont largement fluctué – de 10 à 140 dollars le baril – posant un défi pour les producteurs et les consommateurs. Pour les décideurs, cependant, ces fluctuations sont l'occasion de progresser vers les ambitions mondiales clé – reflétées dans les objectifs de développement durable adoptés en septembre dernier ainsi que dans l'accord sur le climat conclu à Paris en décembre – que sont l'atténuation du changement climatique et la construction d'une économie plus durable.

Les fluctuations récentes des prix du pétrole ressemblent au modèle de la toile d'araignée classique de la théorie microéconomique. Les prix élevés stimulent une augmentation des investissements dans le pétrole. Mais, compte tenu des longs délais entre l'exploration et l'exploitation, au moment où la nouvelle capacité de production devient effectivement opérationnelle, la substitution a déjà eu lieu, et souvent la demande ne justifie plus l'offre disponible. À ce moment, les prix baissent, tout comme l'exploration et l'investissement, y compris dans les substituts au pétrole. Lorsque de nouvelles pénuries développent, les prix commencent à augmenter à nouveau, et le cycle se répète.

Le cycle se poursuivra, bien que d'autres facteurs – tels que la baisse constante des coûts de l'énergie renouvelable et l’adoption progressive de processus de production à moindre intensité énergétique – impliquent qu'il tournera probablement à des niveaux plus bas. Dans tous les cas, une augmentation des prix est inévitable.

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Kemal Derviş

Writing for PS since 2003
111 Commentaries

Kemal Derviş, a former minister of economic affairs of Turkey and administrator for the United Nations Development Programme, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Karim Foda

Writing for PS since 2016
2 Commentaries

Karim Foda is a research analyst at the Brookings Institution.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 10 Comments on this article

Manu Oquendo Feb 25, 2016

What a waste of talent. The servants begging for punishment rather than remedy.
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Mirek Fatyga Feb 23, 2016

the plebs is having it too good. Heaven forbid, riffraff could even take a driving vacation instead of staycation. What is the world coming to? Time for the carbon tax, indeed.
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Hugo Penteado Feb 18, 2016

It is time to review a flawed economic theory that assumes Earth is the subsystem of our economies. A big mistake. All economists advocates this idea because his field copied Mechanical laws as main assumptions and conservation principles. In this Wonderland, economist does not include any variable to account for the contribution of any ecological services and tangible natural resources and even the whole Nature are considered until today completely irrelevant to the economic process.

Carbon Tax without a urgen paradigm shift is the same that discuss the sex of the angels. While this endless discussion without no change continues, we are facing a astonishing huge and fast life extinction that will very likely reach us.

Let´s try to recognize the errors of economics.
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René Costa Feb 17, 2016

Time for a Carbon Tax in the USA is long overdue. Indeed, this country is lagging behind almost 40 countries and more than 20 cities, states and provinces that are already using carbon pricing mechanism or are planning to implement them (re: http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon). There are two main types of carbon pricing: emissions trading Systems (ETS) and carbon taxes. Kemal and Karin refer to the second approach. I would go myself with the first one, because it fixes a specific annual cap for total emissions and creates a market for emissions trading, i.e., the ton CO2 price is market determined. In addition, it is simple, flexible and business friendly. I do acknowledge, however, that the originality of Kemal and Karim proposal is the direct impact it has on the Country or state budget, and that the level of the carbon tax would vary according to oil prices (a new type of derivative!). The basic assumption (as the past crisis are showing) is that oil prices followed a pattern of increases and decreases that generally follow the economic cycles. In conclusion, the two approaches are more complementary than better one to the other. Therefore, it is difficult to say what could be the best approach for the USA, but one thing is certain, the US government should move fast.
René Costa
Head
WBG 1818 Society
Global Finance Chapter
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Barry Rosenfeld Feb 16, 2016

If the word "tax" is so scary, try "regulation."
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Steve Hurst Feb 16, 2016

So when demand rises the proposal is to tax less. I dont think so
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John Brian Shannon Feb 16, 2016

Hi Kemal and Karim,

It is the best idea in the world, and as you rightly point out, the best time to implement a (variable) carbon tax is now.

However, I have my doubts that any government, anywhere in the world, is up to this task. Maybe the Nordic countries could get this done pronto, but that's it.

Were Ike Eisenhower still in office it would be done by the weekend.

Political gridlock and a 'Can't Do' attitude, is why we are slowly losing traction compared to the trajectory the Western nations were once on.

And it is why we are far underperforming vis-à-vis our competitor nations.

Western leaders need to embrace visionary ideas and leaders must lead and not be made to apologize for bringing new policies forward -- and just get on with it!

There is far too much chatter about bombing missions and other things that are far less important than policies that help us to economically excel. And energy is one of those sectors with plenty of room to excel.

President Obama has moved America a quantum leap forward in regards to renewable energy and clean air, but now those technologies are maturing, their unit cost has fallen dramatically, and the opportunities to lower electricity costs and pay financial dividends is here.

But so much more could be done. There are some places where renewable energy is not yet economic. Fine. But the entire south and all three of America's coasts are full of solar, wind, tidal, and geothermal resources.

If carbon tax revenue funds these projects, it won't impact our oil and gas use at all. However, the demand for coal will taper, eventually to zero.

Coal's saving graces however, are that it is not up to us to tell other countries whether to burn coal, or not. We can export (for cash) every ton of coal that we don't burn here. Also, Coal-to-Liquid fuels are among the cleanest fuels on the planet when processed via the Fischer-Tropsch method.

For simplicity's sake, I would be happy with a flat carbon tax of $30./tonne of CO2 -- as is the standard in many European countries, some Canadian provinces, and other nations around the world.

A simple $30./tonne carbon tax is an easy sell, especially now in a time of low oil prices.

A more complicated carbon tax (although many, many, times better!) may prove too hard to sell.

Which is another way of saying, if we can't even enact a simple $30./tonne carbon tax, how will we ever enact a more complicated carbon tax?

(I admit your proposal is perfect, just a harder sell)

As for allowing carbon tax revenue to be used for anything other than adding renewable energy capacity, energy efficiency improvements or other clean air standards improvements... it is dangerously naive to think that the clean energy industry will see much in the way of funding, as governments will always default to using the carbon tax revenue to solve their deficit problems.

I think your idea is, by far, the best carbon tax solution, I just don't think the political might is there to make it happen.

I hope I'm wrong!

As always, very best regards, JBS
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Hemant Sharma Feb 16, 2016

Speaking of the indian market, even when the oil price changes internationally, there is marginal change in gasoline. less than 10 cents usually. So does it mean this tax would not be a good idea for India?
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Bernard Fudim Feb 15, 2016

The world has a carbon economy and taxing it will make it more expensive, but will not create the rapid major changes that climate protector enthusiasts would like to achieve. That carbon economy employs many people with specialized skills and provides individual products that are subsidized by the broad scope of its size. The price of all carbon derivatives such as plastics, rubber tires, organic chemistry, which are to some extent subsidized by the largest applications, which involve the oxidization of carbon molecules. This is a huge carbon industry interdependent upon each other by the cost of removing carbon from the earth and processing it by heat to separate the constituent parts. Such an economy has an inertia and purpose beyond the propulsion of cars and production of electricity. Trying to change just one aspect without considering the entire economy and substructure of employment is too parochial a consideration.
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Tamer Kirac Feb 15, 2016

It must be remembered that goal of a carbon tax is to decarbonize the economy. As it is, carbon taxes hit the poor harder, both in the developed as well in the developing nations. Simply put, the poor spend significantly higher proportion of their income on energy.

The authors' would be encouraged as well, to also focus on how the carbon tax revenues could be used to solve that problem.
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