Resolved: The United States federal government should adopt a carbon tax.

My partner and I affirm todays resolution. A carbon taxs initial goal is to address carbon

output and climate change

Contention 1: Economically and environmentally beneficial

Subpoint A: Puts money back into economy

Carbon tax provides certain economic benefits. A revenue neutral scheme returns leftover

funds to the citizens in the form of either tax breaks or rebates, This means that low and

middle class income households get an income boost. Carbon tax is a substitute for other

taxes, not an addition to them.

When we use all of the revenue for tax relief or social programs, we will see a potential net

welfare benefit that will rise about 0.02% and that benefit will continue to increase over

time. According to the McKinsey Global Initiative's Eric Beinhocker and Jeremy

Oppenheim A"low-carbon revolution can help us to maintain the prosperity we desire,

while holding on to our planet's environmental health. Improved energy efficiency makes

sense from an environmental and economic perspective. It will mean robust investment in

advanced technologies and transportation, with an emphasis on sustainable bio-fuels,

hybrids, and electric vehiclesAccording to Oppenheim and Beinhocker, the renewables

industry is just beginning, and it already employs more than 2.3 million people worldwide.

Subpoint B: Carbon taxes decrease carbon emissions

If you are knowledgeable about any significance at all to the global warming thesis, then

you know that the best and cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to put a

price on them- The carbon tax would apply to the 50 percent or so of emissions that
remain, from the cap-and-trade system that is already in the works for large emitters.

Carbon taxes bring about long-term changes in behavior by embedding the cost of

damage to the environment into the overall price of things. Prices send signals about costs,

everyday in a market economy allowing consumers to make informed choices. The carbon

tax has a significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. We will start to see a pick-up in

emissions as the economy continues to grow. In the policy cases emissions show that they

will be about 14% lower than they were in 2006 by 2020, and they are estimated to drift

down over time to about 20% below 2006 by 2050. To give an example of past success we

look to the implementation of a relatively high carbon tax in 1991 The Norwegian carbon

taxes are among the highest in the world. In the period 1990-1999, we find that the taxes

contributed to a reduction in onshore emissions of 1.5 percent and total emissions of 2.3

percent. With zero tax, the total emissions would have increased by 21.1 percent over the

period 1990-1999, as opposed to the observed growth of 18.7 percent, so we can observe

that the tax had achieved its goal.

Contention 2: Carbon Tax will successfully succeed at the task at hand and is

easy to implement

Subpoint A: How it will succeed

Carbon tax, will greatly succeed in the now-desperate task of bringing the rise of emissions

to a halt. This tax is meant to be imposed on oil corporations and gas companies and was

implemented specifically to raise the prices of fossil fuels across the globe, making their

use less tempting. The mining of coalone of the worst emitter of carbon dioxidewould
gradually phase out along with coal-burning power plants."Coal is responsible for as much

atmospheric carbon dioxide as other fossil fuels combined and it still has far greater

reserves. We must stop using it." said the Gale Group Databases. programmes for

building wind, solar and other renewable energy plants could be given major boosts, along

with research programmes for new generations of nuclear reactors, which is overall better

for the environment and economy.

Subpoint B: Easy to Implement

Relatively few entities control virtually all carbon production which makes them a fairly

simple solution. The particular entities that may own thousands of coal mines or petroleum

or natural gas wells, tend to be rather large and their extrication activities have fixed

locations at the source (apart from sellers, transporters or manufacturers, that may easily

shift locations) simplifying the identification process of them and collecting the carbon tax.

There are approximately 13,000 natural gas and oil extractors residing within the United

States.Thirty "major coal producers" are in charge of eighty-six percent of the U.S. coal

market. The tax does not need to be collected from alternate entities along the chain of

extraction, refining, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption, for two reasons. First, the

tax could potentially cause a reduction in carbon output, making less carbon available

along the chain and thus lowering carbon emissions. Second, the tax will be passed along

the chain to a substantial extent, giving entities and individuals everywhere along the chain

an incentive to reduce carbon consumption.