Global warming poses an existential threat within the next 12 years if fossil fuel use is not rapidly reduced. A carbon tax is the logical solution but faces political challenges. A carbon fee and dividend system could overcome these challenges by returning carbon tax revenue to citizens equally through dividends. This progressive system would benefit lower-income groups and could gain widespread popular support if implemented. Grassroots lobbying groups are working to pass carbon fee and dividend policies around the world.

1. How to save the planet
and make society more equal
By Zeeshan Hasan

2. Why are students striking for
climate?
 Increasing
awareness since
last October of
severity of climate
change
 Global warming
definitely

3. 2018 UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report
 Global warming must be limited to 1.5 C
 Only 12 years left to prevent dangerous
warming of more than 1.5 C by big annual
reductions of fossil fuels
 Currently the world is on track for
catastrophic warming of 3-4 C, which would
leave many tropical and sub-tropical prone to
droughts, crop failure, food shortage and civil
unrest

4. Syrian war fueled by drought
 After a severe multi-year drought in Syria
from 2006-9, millions of people migrated from
agricultural areas to cities, and ultimately
started rioting.
 Civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, causing a
huge refugee crisis
 A glimpse of the future if climate change is
not stopped

5. The danger of Hothouse Earth
 Actually IPCC is
optimistic
 “Feedbacks” in
climate system
could worsen
warming
 Polar ice reflects

6. Earth 5C hotter (James
Lovelock, Revenge of Gaia)

7. Carbon tax: The logical solution, but unpopular
● Basic problem: Fossil fuel prices only reflect the cost of extraction of coal, oil
and gas.
○ The massive costs of global warming are ignored in fuel prices.
○ This a huge failure of the market!
● This market failure to price fossil fuel at their true cost to society can be fixed
by carbon tax
○ We already accept this logic for tobacco
 tobacco causes many health costs not captured in price of cigarette
manufacture, and so is taxed heavily.

8. Problem: carbon taxes may be
regressive Any regressive tax is generally
unpopular
 Even the poorest use some fossil
fuels/carbon intensive products,
which become more expensive
with carbon tax.
 Lower income groups should not
be pushed into ‘fuel poverty’ by
carbon taxes which leave them
unable to afford household heating,
transport etc.
 Hence Macron’s clumsy attempt at

9. The solution: Carbon Fee And Dividend
● Carbon tax/’fee’ charged to coal, oil and gas companies, and accumulated in
a national fund
 Tax charged to fuel companies at point of extraction, refinement or import;
no paperwork for consumers
● A flat ‘Dividend’ from fund paid back equally to all individual taxpayers
 Rewards everyone with lower than average fossil fuel consumption
 Penalizes everyone with higher than average fossil fuel consumption

10. Fee and dividend is progressive
 Wealthier people:
 consume more fossil fuels
(more flights, more fuel for
bigger homes and more cars)
 So pay more in carbon tax
 All get the same flat dividend
 So they pay a net tax
 Poorer people:
 consume less fossil fuels
(fewer flights,smaller home to
heat, public transport instead
of car)
 So pay less in carbon tax
 All they get same flat dividend
 So they get a net benefit

11. Tax has to be popular / sustained
 Lower income people are immediately better off.
 So the system should immediately get popular support.
 Carbon tax has to be popular!
 Otherwise subject to random political/electoral cycle
 To slow global warming, carbon tax has to be sustained
 To stop global warming, carbon tax has to increase each year
 until fossil fuels replaced by renewables.

12. “What about China?”
 Countries imposing carbon tax can levy
“border adjustments” on all imports from
countries without carbon tax
 Like an import tariff; equal to the tax which
would have been collected on that product
made locally
 If UK/EU/US/Canada all do this, countries
such as China exporting goods into these

13. Won’t carbon taxes cause “oil
price shock” like 1970s?
 In 1970s, OPEC production cuts made fuel
prices rise, causing huge recession and
unemployment
– Then, oil importing countries lost the tax
revenue in fuel import payments. So oil
producers like Saudi Arabia were collecting the
“carbon tax”.
 With Carbon Fee and Dividend, local

14. What about plastic?
 Oceans are choking on plastic
 Plastic is everywhere because it is too
cheap
 Plastic is made from petrochemicals!
 Carbon tax which makes fossil fuels
expensive will also make plastic expensive

15. Endorsed by climate scientists
 Dr. James Hansen,
formerly of NASA,
is one of the world’s
most eminent
climate scientists
 First testified to US
Congress in 1980s

16. Fee And Dividend succeeded in Canada; why not
the UK? In Canada, after continuously
lobbying for years, CCL got the
support of enough MPs to pass a
carbon fee and dividend policy
 effective from January 2019!
● The UK should be next!

17. Www.CitizensClimateLobby.org
 Worldwide group of
volunteers
dedicated to
promoting carbon
fee and dividend
 Focuses on
 Spreading