A new podcast episode from Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy focuses on the issues surrounding carbon taxation.
Business leaders, economists and policy experts are increasingly calling for a carbon tax—a fee for using fossil fuels. It would “put a price on carbon” that takes into account its side effects—such as extreme weather, droughts, and floods. The aim is to make burning fossil fuels more expensive, thus driving producers and consumers to shift to clean energy. The revenue from the tax could be used in a variety of ways.
The Center on Global Energy Policy is analyzing how a carbon tax could be designed, and what consequences those different strategies could have. In a recent episode of the Columbia Energy Exchange podcast, Jason Bordoff (director of the Center on Global Energy Policy) and Columbia Business School’s Glenn Hubbard discuss what some of those impacts might be.
Hubbard, who has advised many conservative politicians, including George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, and Jeb Bush, says that a carbon tax is the most efficient way of dealing with the climate change problem—although there will be plenty of kinks to work out.
Bordoff and Hubbard discuss a variety of other topics in the podcast as well, including the role of business in mitigating climate change and how companies will address their exposure to climate risk.
