Carbon Tax

                          Carbon Tax

The carbon tax is the fee that the government charges on the combustion of carbon-related elements such as natural gas, oil, gasoline, or coal. The burning of these abundant carbon fuels produces greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which causes global warming by heating the atmosphere. The carbon tax purpose is to show the real cost of combusting carbon. The carbon tax is majorly used by economists to lower and ultimately discourage the burning of coal-based fuel that significantly leads to global climate change (Dinan, 2012).

Economists view the carbon tax as the only way to have the carbon-related fuel users get charged for causing climate damage by producing carbon dioxide to the environment. A carbon tax, if raised high, economists view it as a powerful monetary tool that enables the users to move to other clean sources of energy available. The cost is incurred by the companies and consumers to pay for the external effects they cause on the global Climate.

Economists view the carbon tax as a good policy because it lowers the emission in several ways. This is because the increase in the fee charged on carbon-related fuels will encourage the companies to move to other available clean sources of energy, such as solar or wind energy, among others. The tax will also lead to an increase in the price of gasoline and electricity. The consumers will then be forced to be energy efficient, thus substantially lowering greenhouse gas emissions. The tax forces the companies to look for more cost-effective ways to eliminate carbon emissions (Dinan, 2012).

Paris Agreement

            The Paris Agreement is a tremendous environmental agreement that was enacted by almost all countries in 2015 to solve climate change and its adverse effects. The accord is aimed at significantly lowering the amount of greenhouse gas emissions with an attempt to control the global temperature rise in the century to two degrees Celsius above the earlier levels while trying to limit the increase to a manageable level (Klein et al., 2015).

The agreement involves the countries that majorly emit greenhouse gases to lower their Climate changing activities that lead to pollution and slowly strengthen the commitments. The commitment gives a platform for the developed nations to help the third world and developing countries to come up with climate control methods. It provides for a pathway for the evaluation, control, and monitoring of the nation’s climate goals.

The agreement will help countries lower the risk of global climate change. This is because the Paris Agreement has much survived were the predecessors had failed.  The deal gives each state to provide its reduction targets and switch to its measures to hit its stated aim. In addition to its standards, the agreement inspired the actions of governments and businesses to realize the war against climate change provides great socio-economic privileges.

The landmark agreement will much achieve its objectives; this is because it recognizes the national governments cannot reach the goals single-handedly. Therefore, the Paris Agreement much involves the local governments, investors, businesses, and civil society, among other institutions relevant to meeting the 1.5 ⁰Celcius goals (Klein et al., 2015). The agreement dramatically insists on unanimity to help reduce global climate change, the climate crisis can be stopped by collective wellbeing, but no single country can prevent the effects alone. It states that countries need to group together and immediately cut emissions to lower the levels of global warming.

Global Climate Change Effects

Change in Climate refers to the interference of normal daily weather conditions; this is brought about by greenhouse emissions. Climate change causes extreme weather conditions such as wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, floods, heatwaves, droughts, among other violent weather patterns. Climate change not only causes problems to the society and planet, but it also threatens the global economy (Jana & Majumder, 2015).

In addition to the severe environmental impact, climate changes possess a significant threat to the global economy. Heatwaves experienced across Asia make the people unable to move to work, thus lowering the level of a country’s productivity. Tornados, typhoons, and cyclones move people from their homes, making millions of people homeless and in abject poverty. Droughts caused by global warming lowers the amount of harvest, making it difficult for the nations to adequately feed the population (Jana & Majumder, 2015).

The extreme weather patterns are estimated to lead to losses on the insurance firms. During the California and Amazon wildfires, Munich Re warned that the insurance firms might be forced to increase the amount of insurance cost due to the ever-dangerous climatic conditions. This will eventually lead to the high cost of insurance to responsible individuals.

The World Employment and Social Outlook 2018 predict the loss of over one million jobs due to the effects of global warming. The industries within the economy that are faced with high risk are fisheries, agriculture, and forestry. The fishing industry is greatly affected since the massive carbon amounts in the atmosphere are absorbed by the water bodies, thus affecting aquatic life leading to declining of catches (Jana & Majumder, 2015).

References

Dinan, T. (2012). Effects of a carbon tax on the economy and the environment (1st ed.). Yorkshire: John Wiley.

Jana, B., & Majumder, M. (2015). Impact of climate change on natural resource management. Dordrecht: Springer.

Klein, D., Carazo, M., Doelle, M., Bulmer, J., & Higham, A. (2015). The Paris Climate Agreement (3rd ed., pp. 23-45). Geneva: Solace.