Climate Justice Alliance Rejects Carbon Tax

By John McClaughry
Here’s an unexpected contribution to the carbon tax debate from the Climate Justice Alliance, which describes itself as ”a collaborative of over 50 community-based and movement support organizations uniting frontline communities to forge a scalable, and socio-economically just transition away from an extractive economy towards local living economies to address the root causes of climate change.” Their 32 page report published online is a well-informed piece of work, although I don’t agree with their final position.
This report, say its authors, “provides in-depth context to why carbon market systems will not mitigate climate change, will not advance adaptation strategies, will not serve the most vulnerable communities facing climate change impacts and only protect the fossil fuel industry and corporations from taking real climate action.”
Further, “Carbon taxes will always be low, be evaded, do not cut pollution to the degree needed, and are greenwash. Under the rubric of carbon pricing, these cap-and-trade, carbon offsets, carbon tax systems are false solutions that do not cut emissions at source, create toxic hot spots, and result in land grabs and violations of human rights and rights of Indigenous peoples in the forest regions of developing countries.”
Their one sentence remedy is: simply keep fossil fuels in the ground. Then we’re supposed to find other ways to heat our homes and businesses and transport ourselves to work and school and church. I have my doubts about that.