Climate: U.S. must catch up on carbon pricing

Re: “ A future without fossil fuels?” (TNT, 7/30).

Business writer Bill Virgin is correct: Fossil fuels will still be needed for some years to provide a base supply of energy.

However, coal, while supplying 40 percent of the world’s energy, contributes 39 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. A recent University of Washington study, reported in The Guardian, states that we have only a 5 percent chance of limiting global temperature rise to the maximum set by the Paris Accord.

Of the 10 largest economies in the world, the U.S. is the only one not to price carbon. Pricing carbon drives alternative forms of energy development, notably renewables.

Citizens Climate Lobby, a grassroots, non-partisan international movement proposes a “carbon dividend,” with the tax distributed back to our nation’s citizens.

The injustice globally is that rich countries produce most of the carbon now devastating impoverished people with drought, famine and sea level rise. We may lose our beach homes; in poor countries, parents lose their children.

It is time to price carbon.

This story was originally published August 7, 2017 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Climate: U.S. must catch up on carbon pricing."