The costs of limiting CO2 emissions
Of course this will never be implemented, but it is the recommendation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recommendation. Taxes on CO2 emissions at $27,000 per ton. For Americans, if done as a gas tax, would equal $240 per gallon.
A United Nations special climate report suggests a tax on carbon dioxide emissions would need to be as high as $27,000 per ton at the end of the century to effectively limit global warming.
For Americans, that’s the same as a $240 per gallon tax on gasoline in the year 2100, should such a recommendation be adopted. In 2030, the report says a carbon tax would need to be as high as $5,500 — that’s equivalent to a $49 per gallon gas tax.
If you think that’s an unlikely scenario, you’re probably not wrong. However, it’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, released Sunday night, sees as a policy option for reducing emissions enough to keep projected warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The IPCC’s report is meant to galvanize political support for doubling down on the Paris climate accord ahead of a U.N. climate summit scheduled for December. The report calls for societal changes that are “unprecedented in terms of scale” in order to limit future global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the stretch goal of the Paris accord.
However, the costs of meeting that goal are high based on the IPCC’s own figures.