Editorial Board
To Stop Climate Change, Use the Power of Price
The price of oil has driven immense human endeavor. A price on carbon emissions could do the same.
Put a price on it.
Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/BloombergA barrel of oil fetches about $80 on the global market. Consider the power of that price: It has driven extensive human endeavor, trillions of dollars in investment, technological breakthroughs, the creation of some of the world’s largest companies — all to extract fossil fuels from wherever in the world they can be found.
The burning of those fuels, among other things, will put about 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide into Earth’s atmosphere this year. Policymakers would like to push that number to zero. But getting there requires a powerful incentive — which is why governments must put a price on carbon as soon as possible.