OPINION: Absent global cooperation, the next best way to motivate the transition away from fossil fuels is to impose a carbon-like tax on imports.
BOSTON —Environmental tariffs may be humanity’s last hope for mitigating climate change, which is on course to become increasingly devastating if we do not curb our greenhouse-gas emissions.
This lack of consistency gives rise to “carbon leakage.” High-emissions activities tend to move away from countries with carbon taxes to those without. While a country that unilaterally adopts a higher carbon tax benefits everyone , it also unwittingly encourages others to do less.
An environmental tariff’s most obvious benefit is that it reduces carbon leakage. By nullifying the artificial cost advantage of imports from low-carbon-tax countries, it encourages steel consumption to shift toward cleaner domestic sources or less-polluting exporters. A second argument is that environmental tariffs are protectionist measures, and that we should not “risk giving protectionists another opening,” as The Economist puts it. This claim does not hold water.
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