Carbon Conundrum

Politicians around the world have signed up to achieving carbon net zero by 2050. And several countries, including the UK and those in the EU, have struck a ‘new green deal’. This puts environmental taxes and subsidies at the heart of energy policy. But it’s created an immensely complex and costly merry-go-round in which even fossil fuels end up being subsidised. This chaotic system, say authors Philip Booth and Carlo Stagnaro, is wide open to regulatory capture – and to an ideologically motivated agenda. It is also less resilient to crises in energy supply, such as the one caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. In Carbon Conundrum they illustrate the incoherence, iniquities and inefficiency of this large-scale government intervention. And they warn that ‘climate change is too important a challenge to be approached in this way’. Instead, they argue for a rational ‘polluter pays’ system of taxing energy sources. This, they contend, would give individuals and businesses much more control over how they reduce carbon emissions. And it would stimulate greater levels of carbon reduction – at a much lower economic cost.