Peace not Pollution: How Going Green Can Tackle Climate Change and Toxic Politics

Abstract

There is growing awareness worldwide of the existential threat posed by climate change and the need for a green transition. Yet, specific ecological policy proposals are routinely rejected by large segments of the population. As argued in this 21-chapter strong eBook, while this may be partly due to freeriding or the utopic hope of saving the planet without sacrifices, a key role is also played by the fact that policy proposals are often badly communicated and ignore political economy incentives and adverse distributional effects. Yet, unintended distributional impacts of green taxes are by no means unavoidable, as a clever design can make any levy progressive. For example, a carbon tax with a targeted redistribution of the ‘carbon dividend’ is able to fight both climate change and inequality, without increasing the total tax burden.

Reference

Christian Gollier, and Dominic Rohner (eds.), Peace not Pollution: How Going Green Can Tackle Climate Change and Toxic Politics, CEPR, June 2023.