Toward Zero-Carbon NYC
• Full-cost pricing of CO2 (carbon tax)
• Full-cost pricing of driving
– “Cordon” pricing
– “Area-wide” road pricing
– Curb space priced for 15% vacancy rate
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Embrace wind power
Unbundled + real-time electricity metering
Community-based energy efficiency
Conservation arbitrage with Upstate NY
Carbon Tax Basics
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Taxing “bads” > subsidizing “goods”
Global metric (unlike cap-trade)
Clear price signals (ditto)
Distribute revenues pro rata (Alaska)
Border Tax Adjustments
Polluters Pay
As “dynamic” as capitalism
Necessary, not sufficient
Carbon Tax Proportions
2
1
Gas
Oil
Coal
0
Relative tax
rate per btu
Fuels
are
taxed by
carbon
content
per btu
Price has fallen in 30
(44%) of past 68 months
Demand for gasoline is price-elastic
2008 v. 2007 (six months ea.)
Usage: 9,021 mbd v. 9,209, ↓ 2.0%
GDP: ↑ 2.3%, → [Gasoline ↑ 1.6%]
Usage “shortfall”: = 1.6% + 2.0% = 3.6%
Price: $3.48 v. $2.75, ↑ 22% “real”
Elasticity (short-run): 3.6%/22%, ≈ 0.17
Elasticity (long-run): we assume 0.40
A Carbon Tax “Path”
• $37 / ton of carbon ( ≈ $10 / ton of CO2)
≈ 10¢ / gallon of gasoline, jet fuel, etc.
≈ 0.72 ¢ / kWh (U.S. retail average)
• Reduces U.S. CO2 emissions ~ 4%
• Repeat > 10 years (while standards
and incentives also cut emissions)
Life with a Carbon Tax
Energy
• Coal-fired generation down
• Wind and other renewable generation up
• Incandescents / halogens out, CFL’s / LED’s in
• Nukes up?
Transportation and Land-Use
• SUVs out, sedans in
• Costlier air and highway travel creates market
pull for VGT-quality intercity rail
• Urban trips by bicycle up 10x, to 10%
• Urban revitalization
Who Supports a Carbon Tax?
• Former V-P Al Gore
• Mayor Michael Bloomberg
• NASA climatologist James Hansen
• Most academic economists and many
“public” ones on left and right
• Friends of the Earth
• Growing cadre in U.S. Congress
Full-cost pricing of driving
For New Yorkers to
accept something as
transformational as
paying to drive on “free”
roads and streets, they
need to receive a
benefit that is equally or
more transformational:
free transit (Kheel Plan)
“There is nothing more difficult to
take in hand than to take the lead in
the introduction of a new order of
things ... the innovator has for
enemies all those who have done
well under the old conditions, and
lukewarm defenders in those who
may do well under the new.”
— Niccolo Machiavelli,
The Prince, 1513
NJ Offshore Wind Farm – The View
(NYC needs ~ 7,500 for 100% of kWh)
“To see these giant towers near
your house – it would be like
driving through oil derricks to get
to your front door.”
— Retired ABC-TV exec with 65 hilltop
acres in upstate Cherry Valley, NY Times,
“Windmills on Their Minds,” Aug. 28, 2002
Toward Zero-Carbon NYC
• Full-cost pricing of CO2 (carbon tax)
• Full-cost pricing of driving
– “Cordon” pricing
– “Area-wide” road pricing
– Curb space priced for 15% vacancy rate
•
•
•
•
Embrace wind power
Unbundled + real-time electricity metering
Community-based energy efficiency
“Conservation arbitrage” with Upstate NY
A NYC energyefficiency
failure:
Manhattan
Community
Board 3 lets the
clock run out
On “Greening
A Block”
The bicycle offers the gains of
advanced technology without
threatening the environment. It
stands not only for undamaged
nature but also for unbroken
autonomy. To attack the pedals
may be strenuous over the short
run, but it is an expression of
trust in one’s own powers, for
with the bicycle everything
depends on the self.
— Wolfgang Sachs
Web sites
• www.carbontax.org
• www.komanoff.net
– http://www.komanoff.net/wind_power/
– http://www.komanoff.net/oil_9_11/
– http://www.komanoff.net/fossil/
– http://www.komanoff.net/nuclear_power/
• www.kheelplan.org
• www.streetsblog.org