The business of global climate change

An article in Forbes, Conservative, small government strategy for fighting climate change, suggests that we need the entrepreneurial spirt of business to respond to the growing devastation being caused by global climate change.  The author, Bob Inglis, notes that last year we broke an insurance record for spending on disaster claims, with 14 events that totaled $47 billion.

The following solution to our energy needs was proposed by former South Carolina Congressman Inglis:

• • Do a revenue-neutral tax swap that reduces taxes on income and shifts the tax onto carbon dioxide, thereby attaching to fossil fuels an approximation of the cost of their negative externalities. [Note: Make sure to keep this revenue-neutral. You may have to add revenue elsewhere in a grand bargain, but the goal of this tax swap is the correction of a market distortion, not the raising of revenue.]
  • Eliminate all subsidies for all fuels, thereby correcting yet another market distortion called government failure.
  • Re-examine and streamline EPA regulations as we tax energy pollution, crafting a more logical approach to a cleaner environment that combines measurable outcomes with the transparent and accountable price signal from a carbon tax.