While the United Nations Climate Change Conference is currently underway in Paris, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called for the immediate implementation of carbon tax globally as he believes it is the only way to accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels.
During a visit to Sorbonne University, clean energy entrepreneur Musk has appealed to younger generations to use their collective influence to instigate change and contribute to the fight against global warming.
Carbon tax could halve the time it takes for energy transition
Musk claims that by not going forward with a widespread carbon tax, there was an effective subsidy of not pricing the damage created by carbon pollution, going on the urge students to campaign and lobby governments across the world to take effective action.
“To make it neither a left nor right issue we should make it a revenue-neutral carbon tax – increasing carbon tax and reducing tax in other areas like consumption taxes or VAT and in order to give companies time to react it should be a phased in approach”, Musk suggested.
Under this scenario, fossil fuels would have a higher tax than sources of clean energy, making the latter a more affordable and practical option and discouraging coal, oil and gas. According to Musk, this type of varied tax approach already occurs throughout the world, referencing the tax on alcohol and cigarettes compared to the tax on fruit and vegetables.
Musk encourages students to engage governments for effective policy
The energy tycoon defended his proposal by saying that “if countries agree to a carbon tax and it’s real it’s not super watered down and weak we could see a transition [to clean energy] that has a 15 to 20 year timeframe as opposed to a 40 or 50 year time frame, we could probably cut it in half and that would have a huge impact on the … welfare of the world … it really matters where we do this transition sooner or later.”
Musk highlighted to students the finite nature of fossil fuels and that was inevitable that eventually, the world would run out of carbon to mine and burn and would have to move onto to renewable sources.
Musk also referring to the International Monetary Fund findings that suggest hidden subsidies for all carbon-pricing activity add up to a staggering $5.3 trillion US dollars annually, ultimately delaying the transition to cleaner energy alternatives.
Musk sends call to action for younger generations to fight carbon propaganda
“The fundamental problem is the rules today incent people to create carbon; this is madness,” Musk said. “So what do you do? Whenever you have the opportunity, talk to your politicians, ask them to enact carbon tax.” The clean energy advocate also encouraging students to “fight the propaganda of the carbon industry” and discuss the need for change with their peers and those around them.
There’s no denying that the fight ahead is a big one and the changes that need to be made will take time, but Musk has high hopes that the current UN Climate Change Summit of global leaders in Paris will yield effective results.
Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk on Flickr
