As we see the end of what will likely be the hottest summer ever recorded, as more than half of Massachusetts endures extreme drought, as we witness the suffering caused by wildfires, storms and rising seas around the world, we begin to understand that climate change is not just an “environmental” issue. For more and more people, it’s a matter of survival. That makes it a moral issue for all of us.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated two years before the first Earth Day in 1970. But he understood the fundamental principle of ecology. All of us “are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,” he wrote in 1963 from Birmingham (Ala.) Jail, “tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Growing majorities of Americans acknowledge the threat of climate change and want to do something about it. But the longer politicians delay, the more harm becomes unavoidable — and the more expensive it will be to fix it.
Massachusetts has the chance to lead the nation in passing a common sense policy that will address the moral crisis of climate change, reduce global warming emissions and improve job prospects for thousands of people.
This policy will help low- and moderate-income communities who are already bearing the brunt of climate change. It’s called carbon pricing, and it’s widely acknowledged as the single most effective way to move away from the fossil fuels causing climate change toward more reliable renewable energy.
But, it can also align our economy with the moral imperative to be a faithful steward of our natural resources and to protect the most vulnerable among us.
With carbon pricing, a fee is added to the price of fuel in proportion to the amount of carbon dioxide (the main cause of climate change) it emits when burned. This fee would help shift the money we spend on energy — Massachusetts residents annually send $20 billion out of state to fossil fuel producers — to address unmet needs in our communities. It offers a path to create a more sustainable economy while reducing the emissions menacing our future.
At home and abroad, those least responsible for carbon pollution are the most vulnerable to the ravages of climate change and can least afford to mitigate or escape it.
In his 2015 encyclical, “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis addressed this fundamental unfairness: “Businesses profit by calculating and paying only a fraction of the costs involved. Yet only when ‘the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations,’ can those actions be considered ethical,” he wrote.
In other words, producers and distributors of fossil fuels should be held responsible for the impact of their products on people and our environment. Carbon pricing will help eliminate the free ride fossil fuel polluters enjoy while the rest of us pay the environmental and health costs.
In the next legislative session, an important bill will be introduced to implement a carbon fee-and-rebate policy, a form of carbon pricing proven effective elsewhere, notably in British Columbia.
Here’s how it would work. Fossil fuel importers would be charged a fee based on the carbon content of the fuels, and the revenues would be passed on directly to households and employers. Each resident would receive an equal rebate, giving everyone an incentive to reduce their use of fossil fuel in order to keep more of their money. Since low- and moderate-income households tend to use less energy than wealthier ones, on average they would come out ahead. Businesses, nonprofit organizations and municipalities would receive a rebate based on their share of the state’s employment. A similar proposal would invest a small portion of the funds from the carbon fee in the clean energy sector.
Carbon pricing makes sense economically, environmentally and morally. According to a 2014 report from the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, carbon pricing would spur thousands of additional jobs in the commonwealth, because residents would spend more of their dollars at home.
British Columbia, which launched a fee-and-rebate program in 2008, has seen fossil fuel consumption drop by 16 percent. Its economy is outperforming most of the rest of Canada, and it has attracted investment from more than 150 clean technology companies.
Massachusetts has been a leader in embracing innovative and ethical social policies that the rest of the nation has later followed. Now we have a historic opportunity to lead on climate change.
Let’s do the right thing and pass carbon pricing.
Rev. Fred Small is director of Faith Outreach for Climate XChange, which advocates for carbon pricing in Massachusetts. He spoke on carbon pricing at All Souls Church in Greenfield on Saturday.