Democrats deny Obama policies and prospects of new policies are stalling the economy

Democrats deny Obama policies and prospects of new policies are stalling the economy

Report: 150 major firms plan for carbon tax Assume U.S. will eventually impose tax

By Wendy Koch

About 150 major companies worldwide — including ExxonMobil, Google, Microsoft and 26 others in the United States — are already making business plans that assume they will be taxed on their carbon pollution, a report today says.

The U.S. has yet to impose a price on heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, but other nations are starting to do so as a way to address global warming so U.S. based companies are factoring an eventual one into their plans, says the international non-profit CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. The report is the group’s first to look at corporate carbon pricing on a global scale.

“We’re seeing companies taking steps they’re not required to, and they’re doing this to be competitive in a carbon constrained world,” says Zoe Antitch, spokeswoman of CDP North America, noting many do business in multiple countries. “They’re looking ahead. ... They’re climate-ready.”

The report comes one week before leaders of 100-plus countries convene Sept. 23 in New York City for the United Nations’ Climate Summit, at which leaders of many nations and corporations are likely to announce their plans to reduce carbon emissions. The World Bank is calling for carbon pricing as a key strategy.

“A price on carbon creates incentives,” Rachel Kyte, the World Bank Group’s special envoy for climate change, told reporters last week. By hiking the price of fossil fuels like oil and coal that emit the most carbon dioxide when burned, she said it spurs investments in energy efficiency and non-polluting renewable power like solar and wind. She said Canada’s British Columbia has had a “revenue-neutral” carbon tax since 2008, and its CO2 emissions have fallen while its economy has grown.

Yet in the U.S., some business leaders and GOP members of Congress remain opposed to taxing carbon emissions, saying it could raise consumer prices for energy.

They helped defeat President Obama’s legislative push for a national cap-and- trade system in which overall emissions are capped but companies that exceed the limits can buy emission credits from those that emitted less.

So Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency, acting without Congress, proposed in June to cut carbon emissions from existing U.S. power plants 30% by 2030. The EPA rule would allow states to meet varying reduction targets by closing coal-fired power plants, saving energy, using more renewable power or forming regional cap-and-trade programs.

California has its own such program as do nine northeastern U.S. states, which have created the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI.

Other countries have adopted them as well. China, which has several regional programs, has announced it will implement a national cap-and-trade by 2020. The European Union began its Emissions Trading Scheme in 2005 that covers power plants and factories, and the United Kingdom has its own program to include additional emitters.