Paris is burning and the Wall Street Journal editorial page is gleeful in its misrepresentation of the Gilet Jaune (Yellow Vest) flames. Along with so many others in the fossil-foolish climate-science denial cabal, the WSJ editorial page is asserting that the flames are about rejecting efforts to address climate change. It is all about, for the WSJ, people rejecting carbon pricing on gasoline.
The Libertarian Niskanen Center‘s Jerry Taylor provided an excellent reality check on the WSJ.
Key points from Taylor’s tweets (below):
- French gasoline is nearly $US7/gallon
- — e.g., roughly more than 2.5x US fuel prices.
- To raise US fuel prices to French levels would require roughly a $400/ton carbon tax —
- over 10x the highest proposals on the table even from climate hawk Bernie Sanders.
- The additional, delayed, French fuel taxes are roughly the equivalent of 11-23 cents per gallon.*
- E.g., less than 2% of existing fuel prices.
As Taylor concludes,
the right would appear to be saying that a 4 cent/gallon increase in gasoline taxes (which is all that was proposed in France) would similarly trigger bloody rights were they proposed in the U.S. This sounds more like an empty threat than a cool-eyed forecast.
The Gilet Jaune riots are serious and, as per the decision to delay the implementation of the gasoline tax, this is not principally about French government choices to act on climate change, it is not (as falsely asserted by Trump) a repudiation of the Paris Agreement.
There is discord in France, with many seeing Macron’s policies as unduly favoring the already powerful, the already rich and undermining basic French egalitarianism and promoting the sorts of policies that have led to ever worsening economic inequality and concentration of wealth and power amid an ever-smaller elite. And, frustration that Macron is seemingly oblivious to the reality of challenges in rural France and stressed non-elite urban areas that mirror those elsewhere in the world due to globalization.
Good morning. The protests in France are more about a solid plurality of French people not having enough money to live on despite full-time work than they are about resisting climate action.
1/2
— Dr. Genevieve Guenther (@DoctorVive) December 4, 2018
Now, there are threads of truth in the WSJ even though, with that truth, the subtext is deception.
voters don’t believe that climate change justifies policies that would raise their cost of living and hurt the economy.
What the WSJ editorial board is doing here is continuing to promote the fundamental falsehood that it is environment versus the economy and, essentially, falsely asserting that one can’t #ActOnClimate while boosting economic performance.
First, sensible moves to both mitigate and adapt to climate change will boost economic performance, even without considering the highest order value of reducing future climate costs and risks. If one wishes to be quite generous to the WSJ editorial page (which, based on the history of climate science denialism isn’t really justified), perhaps the argument is that governments around the world need to address climate change with policy structures that will address both climate risks and economic inequalities. E.g., is the WSJ providing a backhanded endorsement of the Green New Deal?
Second, there is the long-term challenge that traditional ‘economic’ measures (e.g., GDP) are mistaken measures. Spending massive resources to clean up an oil spill boosts the GDP due to the spending. Building seawalls to deal with rising seas boosts the GDP since it is economic activity. Insurance companies paying off for those killed and property destroyed in Paradise, California, in climate-change related fire catastrophe boosts the GDP numbers. Seriously, why does anyone think that this is ‘good’? As Michael Liebreich appropriately summarized as the attacks on the National Climate Assessment seeking to analyze GDP impacts from unchecked climate chaos:
I dont give a damn whether climate change causes more impact on GDP than climate action. A world where we are spending trillions to move cities inland, where coral reefs are destroyed and nature disrupted might well have a healthy GDP. But so what! Forget GDP, think about wealth.
— Michael Liebreich (@MLiebreich) December 5, 2018
Note: Taylor has the delayed tax at 4 cents/gallon when the range is 3 or 6 cents per litre, so 11-23 cents per gallon.
The argument–as offered by @WSJopinion and conservative anti-tax activists— that the riots in Paris tell us all we need to know about what's in store for the U.S. if we were to adopt a carbon tax, is nuts. Some context <THREAD> https://t.co/F1pvHQNEVh
— Jerry Taylor (@jerry_jtaylor) December 4, 2018
1/ Here's data regarding gasoline prices in France over the past year. This chart reports U.S. $ per liter. Multiply times 4 to get a sense of U.S. $ per gallon. Hence, at present, French gasoline pries are at about $6.92 per gallon. pic.twitter.com/1iWysJ7uSH
— Jerry Taylor (@jerry_jtaylor) December 4, 2018
3/ OK, let's posit that fuel price increases of that nature would test the boundaries of public acceptance. But would fuel price increases triggered by the $25-40/ton carbon taxes being discussed in American politics do the same?
— Jerry Taylor (@jerry_jtaylor) December 4, 2018
5/ … Affordable, high performance EVs will be penetrating the market according to most every energy forecaster who's in this business. Don't like gasoline prices? Get an EV and avoid the tax. That, after all, is how a carbon tax drives decarbonization.
— Jerry Taylor (@jerry_jtaylor) December 4, 2018
6/ Regardless, the right would appear to be saying that a 4 cent/gallon increase in gasoline taxes (which is all that was proposed in France) would similarly trigger bloody rights were they proposed in the U.S. This sounds more like an empty threat than a cool-eyed forecast.
— Jerry Taylor (@jerry_jtaylor) December 4, 2018