Don’t Count On Magic

So you would put a tax on carbon, complemented by a tax cut for poor people?
Not only for poor people, but middle income people. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. I understand why [my plan] is a very difficult lift for the American political system. There are other, indirect ways to put a price on carbon. The cap-and-trade system that president-elect Barack Obama is endorsing is also an effective way to go about it. I also think it's very significant, by the way, that China is now talking about its own domestic cap-and-trade legislation.

China and India have opted out of past agreements to curb carbon emissions. How would you convince the Chinas and Indias of the world that this is their problem, too?
China and India and other developing countries all have exactly the same excuse for not moving on the climate crisis. They say, the United States hasn't done anything. When the U.S. acts it will be by far the most effective way to improve the odds that China and India and other smaller developing economies will also act. They know that it's in their own interest to tackle this problem.

Yet China and India build a new coal-fired power plant every week.
Yes, but as the old saying goes, instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle. There is a lot of positive momentum in both India and China. China is now actively preparing a version of cap-and-trade legislation. Their top leaders appear to get it. They have the largest tree-planting program in the world. They are actively building solar and wind and exploring carbon capture and sequestration. They are not doing enough by a long shot [but] the way to encourage them to do more is … for the United States to take the lead.

What do you think of "clean coal" as a solution?
Many in the industry are proposing to go forward with the construction of thousands of new coal plants on the assumption that they will at some point be retrofitted with this technology that does not yet exist. There is not a single large-scale demonstration [clean coal] plant anywhere in the United States ... [The technology shows] some promise but it is not anywhere near a stage that justifies building new coal-fired generating plants.

So industry leaders are acting with unwarranted optimism, in order to build more coal plants immediately?
It's beginning to resemble something that the auto companies did for years. Every few years they would show the cars of the future that run on hydrogen or whatever. [They say] they're going to be magical and pollution-free and they put them in the showroom—but then they never build them. We cannot allow an illusion to be the basis of a strategy for human survival.

© 2008