Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish business school professor and author who has riled environmentalists by arguing that addressing climate change should be a lesser priority than global health and nutrition initiatives, is calling for a $7 per ton tax on carbon dioxide emissions, reports the Wall Street Journal.
According to the paper, Lomborg says a carbon tax “could address what he calls a ‘market failure’ in the development of solar-power systems and wind turbines effective enough and cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.”
Supporters of a carbon tax say it is a more efficient approach to regulating CO2 emissions than a cap-and-trade system, which they say will be complex and full of loopholes.
Supporters of cap-and-trade argue the system offers greater flexibility (including more opportunities for carbon trading) while setting a fixed limit on emissions. They maintain that cap-and-trade is politically more feasible than a carbon tax, which enjoys little support in Washington.
