Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) voiced his support for a carbon tax in order to help combat climate change.
At a Washington Post webinar on Thursday, Romney spoke about the necessity of fighting climate change. In his view, the most useful tool would be a carbon tax, which would push the private sector to innovate towards clean energy.
“The folks at MIT, as you probably know, built a model saying, ‘Okay, what things that we do, will actually reduce emissions, reduce temperatures or hold temperatures from going up as fast as they have it. What can we do?’ And the number one thing, and frankly, the only thing that had a major impact was having a price on carbon, the carbon tax either through or through a whole series of mechanisms, but a carbon tax or some kind of price on carbon with border adjustment taxes. That’s the only thing that has a significant impact,” Romney said.
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“I would note that a price on carbon is a way of not just raising money for the government. That’s not the purpose of it,” he went on to explain. “The price the reason for putting a price on carbon is to create a massive incentive for the private sector to innovate and to create innovations. Which will be low emitting, and low cost, and therefore will be adopted not just here, but adopted voluntarily in India and Brazil and China. That’s what we have to do do things that get accepted globally.”
He went on to criticize the Democrats’ approach to climate change, saying they pursue policies that “sounds good, but won’t make a difference.” Particularly, spending money on insulating buildings and buying electric cars is ineffective in the long term, he argued, as CO2 emissions will still go up globally.
“So, we have to do things that will be adopted everywhere. Not just things that make us feel better about ourselves,” he said.
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He also claimed that Democrats could have passed a tax on carbon while they had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, and that it was a “missed opportunity” that would be felt for a “very long time.”
