The great carbon divide, on inequality and the climate last week and the article by Damian Carrington (Restaurants, pets and holidays: how UK’s well-off have outsize carbon footprints, 20 November), the immense cost of climate change to those least responsible is one of the most appalling developments we now confront. Yet, there is an answer. It’s nearly 10 years since Jonathan Porritt, in his book The World We Made, first called for the kind of carbon tax (now known more generally as climate income) that’s been implemented in four provinces of Canada. It’s basically a predictably rising price on all fossil fuels, with the funds rebated to citizens.
The policy is redistributive, costs the government nothing and, unlike a one-off windfall tax, holds the promise of gradually pricing fossil fuels entirely out of the market. Meanwhile, it rewards alternative energy use and gives incentives to every kind of “green” innovation, initiative or behaviour.
Private jets, yachts, multiple large homes, gas-guzzling cars … the list goes on. Add in the water companies discharging raw sewage into rivers, lakes and seas, and the environmental horror is complete. In the meantime, we’re encouraged to switch off lights, recycle the odd plastic bottle, compost bits of food waste and reuse our shopping bags.
It’s so disheartening to realise that a lifetime of effort by households to reduce and recycle waste, save energy and reduce pollution will be wiped out in a matter of days by the world’s richest people just carrying on as usual. Why bother?
Rather than export our ideas on climate change, we must consider what we can gain from the lived experiences of Indigenous communities such as the Baniwa people in the Brazilian Amazon. Deforestation in South America has a detrimental impact on the climate, and through the destruction of these lands we could also be destroying potential solutions provided by the people who call it home.
The other is carbon emissions, which in principle can be cut independently and even in advance of progress on equality. If Elon Musk was to power his private jet and Jeff Bezos his superyacht with biofuels, their carbon emissions would be zero. We need a green billionaires movement.