Bloomberg calls for a carbon tax
mongabay.com
December 13, 2007
|
|
New York City mayor and potential U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg said that carbon cap-and-trade schemes are vulnerable to “special interests, corruption, inefficiencies,” and should be replaced by straight carbon taxes, reports the Associated Press.
Speaking at the U.N. climate meeting in Bali, Indonesia Bloomberg said, “Most experts would agree that the way to solve the problem is with a carbon tax.”
Bloomberg added that carbon trading is “a very inefficient way to accomplish the same thing that a carbon tax accomplishes. It leaves itself open to special interests, corruption, inefficiencies.”
“You really want to tax the coal producers in a way that coal producers could reduce that tax by investing in technology and in ways to make coal a cleaner-burning, less polluting fuel,” he continued.
As mayor of New York, Bloomberg has aggressively pushed energy efficiency and other “green” initiatives.
Many economists say a carbon tax would be the most efficient way to curtail greenhouse gas emissions by industry.