: The New Climate Taxes That May be Closer Than You Think #WorldNEWS Last week, a group of Democratic lawmakers known for their climate policy advocacy gathered outside the U. S. Capitol building to

The New Climate Taxes That May be Closer Than You Think #WorldNEWS
Last week, a group of Democratic lawmakers known for their climate policy advocacy gathered outside the U. S. Capitol building to call for a new tax on the immense profits earned by oil and gas companies since Russia invaded Ukraine last year. ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron alone made more than 0 billion in profits in 2022 thanks to high prices, and the lawmakers argued that the U. S. should tax it and redistribute a cut back to consumers.
“We know truthfully how much money they made by gouging consumers,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island with a history of pushing for action to combat climate change. “Were working to try to take that back. ”

Taxes have always played a key role in climate policy. For decades, climate advocates pushed for a tax on carbon to penalize emissions. When that failed to gain traction, they switched gears to advocate instead for tax incentives to spur clean energy. Those two tax policies have dominated the debate over taxation and climate change. Now a new tranche of policies has entered the field. Politicians in Washington are pushing windfall profit taxes. Leaders in Europe have called for levies on high-emitting industries like aviation and shipping. Even the most ordinary of taxes—think of the personal income tax and corporate income tax—are now being linked to climate change in policy discussions in new and perhaps surprising ways.
For now, at least, the idea of a windfall tax is dead on arrival in Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives. But elsewhere, including some conservative-led countries, the policy is making progress. Which means it could eventually become one of several new tax tools for financing the green energy transition in the U. S. as well, as countries race to compete for the technologies of the future. “Contrary to what people might think, taxes have good days ahead,” says Lucas Chancel, an economist at the World Inequality Lab of the Paris School of Economics who studies environmental policy and inequality. “They are necessary tools and solutions to the climate crisis. ”
Understanding the links between climate policy and taxation begins with the carbon tax. Carbon taxes, long considered the favorite climate policy tool by economists, require polluters to pay for the carbon they emit, pushing big companies to decarbonize while also raising money that can be used for anything from building clean energy projects to helping workers adjust to the transition.
But, despite years of effort and some promising first mover countries, the carbon tax failed to gain widespread acceptance.