As Judith Schwartz detailed in February (“The Social Cost of Carbon"), the U.S. government began regulating carbon dioxide emissions via the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement of the Clean Air Act. The U.S. calculated the social cost of carbon — the economic damage done by 1 ton of carbon dioxide emissions — through an Interagency Working Group made up of many different cabinet departments and agencies. They estimated the economic damage per ton of CO2 to be just $21, or only about 21 cents per gallon of gasoline.
That price was quite similar to the AUS$23 per metric ton Australia is assessing its 500 top carbon emitters beginning July 1, 2012, according to an announcement Prime Minister Julia Gillard made earlier this month. (That AUS$23 is roughly US$24.50 at current exchange rates.)
“[Five hundred big polluters] now know how much they will pay unless they cut their pollution," she said in a nationwide address. “And they can start planning to cut pollution now. … By 2020, our carbon price will take 160 million [metric] tons of pollution out of the atmosphere every year. That's the equivalent of taking 45 million cars off the road." Read the full report here.
Source: by Dan Watson, Miller-McCune.
