Via the Basic Income network’s newsletter:
USBIG reports that a new movement has sprung up recently in the US that links limits on CO2 emissions with a small basic income.
“Peter Barnes, Senior Fellow of “On the Commons”, is promoting the “cap and dividend”, which is basically a resource dividend applied to CO2 emissions. Under the plan, the Federal government caps CO2 emissions, and auctions off the limited number of permits to the sellers of oil, coal, natural gas and any other CO2-emitting products.
The companies will pass the cost of the permits onto consumers, so that each person pays proportionately to the amount of CO2 emissions they are responsible for. The government can further reduce emissions each year, which will likely raise the price of permits. The government redistributes the revenue from the auction equally to all citizens in the form of a monthly or yearly dividend. The dividend represents exactly one per capita share of the cost of the emissions permits. That means that a person who emits an average amount of CO2 receives back in her dividend just as much as she pays in higher fuel costs; a person who emits more than average pays more in higher fuel costs than she receives in the dividend; and a person who emits less than average receives more in her dividend than she pays in higher fuel cost. Therefore, cap and dividend redistributes from those who pollute
more to those who pollute less.
The dividend is also a small basic income guarantee. According the CapandDividend.org,
“Cap and dividend is a simple, market-based way to reduce CO2 emissions without reducing household incomes. It caps fossil fuel supplies, makes polluters pay, and returns the revenue
to everyone equally.”
“Cap and Dividend” has gotten well-known politicians to endorse basic income, perhaps without even realizing it. Former Vice-President Al Gore and Former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich have both endorsed cap and dividend, and it is beginning to be discussed by legislators, a few of who have seen the connection with basic income (see BIEN NewsFlash 51). According to the Cap and Dividend website,
“For some time, Barack Obama has supported a carbon cap and 100% auction of carbon permits. Now he’s calling for returning a ‘huge chunk’ of auction revenue to consumers to offset higher energy prices.”
Rolling Stone Magazine quoted Obama saying,
“If we institute a cap-and-trade system, that’s going to mean higher prices for consumers, so a huge chunk of that has to go back to consumers in the form of rebates, so they don’t feel the pinch as badly.”
Whether Obama’sversion of the tax rebate will take the form of universal grant remains to be clarified.”
For further information: http://www.capanddividend.org/
UK-based project: http://www.capandshare.org/