Carbon Tax with Reinvestment Trumps Cap-and-Trade

Part I of this paper reviews the current opinion surrounding carbon tax proposals as they appear in the literature. Part II will provide an overview of the current cap-and-trade proposals. Part III will introduce a carbon tax with reinvestment. Part IV of this article reviews the leading proposals arguing that a carbon tax is superior to cap-and-trade. And finally, for Part V explains why a carbon tax with reinvestment trumps cap-and-trade

Europe Should Dump Cap-and-Trade in Favor of Carbon Tax with Reinvestment to Reduce Global Emissions

It is time for the European Union to dump the EU-ETS cap-and trade system, as it is not working. By adopting a carbon tax with reinvestment, the European Union (EU) could reduce its economy-wide emissions by forty-eight percent (and emissions from buildings and utilities by sixty-five percent) within twenty years while automatically putting in place a border tax adjustment. By adopting the carbon tax with reinvestment, the EU\u27s trading partners would be heavily encouraged to adopt the same system, thereby dramatically reducing global emissions. This adoption would occur much like the EU adopting the Value-Added Tax and 150 countries following within a short time after. The impacts would be dramatic, from potentially reducing emissions in the United States by forty nine percent and emissions from building and utilities by sixty-seven percent over twenty years to China actually reducing its emissions over the next twenty years by a nineteen percent reduction in emissions for buildings and utilities, and a thirteen percent economy-wide reduction instead of almost doubling them. This system would also encourage countries such as Brazil and Malaysia to stop deforesting or else lose access to the world\u27s largest markets for their exports. The EU countries would utilize the proceeds from the tax, once collected, to rebuild the electric power grid in order to significantly reduce carbon emissions. The structure thereby creates both a penalty for states that emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases and an incentive for states to significantly change their emissions profile by investing in clean hybrid energy resources. The EU once again has an opportunity to lead the world in climate change mitigation by adopting a tax that will fund the replacement of its current energy infrastructure, not only reducing emissions, but also increasing the region’s energy security and reducing its reliance on unreliable energy suppliers

Designing a Better Carbon Tax: Only with Reinvestment

The objective of a tax on emissions is to curtail total discharges. Ever since Rio and Kyoto, this seems to be an elusive goal. Many papers have been written on the topic, but none actually solve the dilemma of how to proactively reduce emissions. This Article seeks to solve this issue by designing a better carbon tax to reduce U.S. emissions 90% by 2050. The first step needed is to extend and explain the economics of a carbon tax with reinvestment. I examine and graphically show the economics of the tax and subsequent reinvestment of revenues into building clean power plants. I consider a carbon tax applied uniformly to goods and services based on emissions intensity. This simplifies the challenge of applying the tax by creating a tax structure that is applied in a manner similar to a sales tax, but uses the value added tax (“VAT”) structure. A carbon tax is traditionally associated with cost certainty. To make the tax benefit certain, I propose to use the tax revenues to build new power generation, thereby replacing existing facilities, significantly reducing emissions. This also significantly reduces future energy costs, thereby refunding the monies paid by the people and I demonstrate this using economic graphs. However, while realizing that this is the best policy proposed to date, it does not solve emissions from transportation. Therefore, I take the next step and propose that the tax policy needs to include a directive to convert fossil fuel transportation to fuel cell, battery and electric vehicles. Doing so results in U.S. emissions declining 90% by 2050

Free Radical Exposure Creates Paler Carotenoid-Based Ornaments: A Possible Interaction in the Expression of Black and Red Traits

Oxidative stress could be a key selective force shaping the expression of colored traits produced by the primary animal pigments in integuments: carotenoids and melanins. However, the impact of oxidative stress on melanic ornaments has only recently been explored, whereas its role in the expression of carotenoid-based traits is not fully understood. An interesting study case is that of those animal species simultaneously expressing both kinds of ornaments, such as the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa). In this bird, individuals exposed to an exogenous source of free radicals (diquat) during their development produced larger eumelanin-based (black) plumage traits than controls. Here, we show that the same red-legged partridges exposed to diquat simultaneously developed paler carotenoid-based ornaments (red beak and eye rings), and carried lower circulating carotenoid levels as well as lower levels of some lipids involved in carotenoid transport in the bloodstream (i.e., cholesterol). Moreover, partridges treated with a hormone that stimulates eumelanin production (i.e., alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone) also increased blood carotenoid levels, but this effect was not mirrored in the expression of carotenoid-based traits. The redness of carotenoid-based ornaments and the size of a conspicuous eumelanic trait (the black bib) were negatively correlated in control birds, suggesting a physiological trade-off during development. These findings contradict recent studies questioning the sensitivity of carotenoids to oxidative stress. Nonetheless, the impact of free radicals on plasma carotenoids seems to be partially mediated by changes in cholesterol metabolism, and not by direct carotenoid destruction/consumption. The results highlight the capacity of oxidative stress to create multiple phenotypes during development through differential effects on carotenoids and melanins, raising questions about evolutionary constraints involved in the production of multiple ornaments by the same organism

Supplemental Information 3: Dataset including repeated measures for the carotenoid-supplement experiment. The dataset excludes birds receiving diquat (see Methods). Description of variables inserted as comments on variable names.

Colorful ornaments have been the focus of sexual selection studies since the work of Darwin. Yellow to red coloration is often produced by carotenoid pigments. Different hypotheses have been formulated to explain the evolution of these traits as signals of individual quality. Many of these hypotheses involve the existence of a signal production cost. The carotenoids necessary for signaling can only be obtained from food. In this line, carotenoid-based signals could reveal an individual's capacity to find sufficient dietary pigments. However, the ingested carotenoids are often yellow and became transformed by the organism to produce pigments of more intense color (red ketocarotenoids). Biotransformation should involve oxidation reactions, although the exact mechanism is poorly known. We tested the hypothesis that carotenoid biotransformation could be costly because a certain level of oxidative stress is required to correctly perform the conversion. The carotenoid-based signals could thus reveal the efficiency of the owner in successfully managing this challenge. In a bird with ketocarotenoid-based ornaments (the red-legged partridge Alectoris rufa), the availability of different carotenoids in the diet (i.e. astaxanthin, zeaxanthin and lutein) and oxidative stress were manipulated. The carotenoid composition was analyzed and quantified in the ornaments, blood, liver and fat. A number of oxidative stress biomarkers were also measured in the same tissues. First, we found that color and pigment levels in the ornaments depended on food levels of those carotenoids used as substrates in biotransformation. Second, we found that birds exposed to mild levels of a free radical generator (diquat) developed redder bills and deposited higher amounts of ketocarotenoids (astaxanthin) in ornaments. Moreover, the same diquat-exposed birds also showed a weaker resistance to hemolysis when their erythrocytes were exposed to free radicals, with females also enduring higher oxidative damage in plasma lipids. Thus, higher color production would be linked to higher oxidative stress, supporting the biotransformation hypothesis. The recent discovery of an avian oxygenase enzyme involved in converting yellow to red carotenoids may support our results. Nonetheless, the effect could also depend on the abundance of specific substrate carotenoids in the diet. Birds fed with proportionally higher levels of zeaxanthin showed the reddest ornaments with the highest astaxanthin concentrations. Moreover, these birds tended to show the strongest diquat-mediated effect. Therefore, in the evolution of carotenoid-based sexual signals, a biotransformation cost derived from maintaining a well-adjusted redox machinery could coexist with a cost linked to carotenoid acquisition and allocation (i.e. a resource allocation trade-off).Esther García-de Blas was supported by a predoctoral grant (JAE-PRE) from the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) co-financed by Fondo Social Europeo (EU). This study was funded by Consejería de Educación y Ciencia, Junta de Comunidades de Castilla la Mancha (project ref.: PII1I09-0271-5037) and Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CGL2009-10883-C02-02 and CGL2015-69338-C2-2-P) from the Spanish Government.Peer Reviewe

Epidemiological data from the COVID-19 outbreak, real-time case information

Abstract: Cases of a novel coronavirus were first reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in December 2019 and have since spread across the world. Epidemiological studies have indicated human-to-human transmission in China and elsewhere. To aid the analysis and tracking of the COVID-19 epidemic we collected and curated individual-level data from national, provincial, and municipal health reports, as well as additional information from online reports. All data are geo-coded and, where available, include symptoms, key dates (date of onset, admission, and confirmation), and travel history. The generation of detailed, real-time, and robust data for emerging disease outbreaks is important and can help to generate robust evidence that will support and inform public health decision making

Epidemiological data from the COVID-19 outbreak, real-time case information

Abstract: Cases of a novel coronavirus were first reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in December 2019 and have since spread across the world. Epidemiological studies have indicated human-to-human transmission in China and elsewhere. To aid the analysis and tracking of the COVID-19 epidemic we collected and curated individual-level data from national, provincial, and municipal health reports, as well as additional information from online reports. All data are geo-coded and, where available, include symptoms, key dates (date of onset, admission, and confirmation), and travel history. The generation of detailed, real-time, and robust data for emerging disease outbreaks is important and can help to generate robust evidence that will support and inform public health decision making

Epidemiological data from the COVID-19 outbreak, real-time case information

Abstract: Cases of a novel coronavirus were first reported in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, in December 2019 and have since spread across the world. Epidemiological studies have indicated human-to-human transmission in China and elsewhere. To aid the analysis and tracking of the COVID-19 epidemic we collected and curated individual-level data from national, provincial, and municipal health reports, as well as additional information from online reports. All data are geo-coded and, where available, include symptoms, key dates (date of onset, admission, and confirmation), and travel history. The generation of detailed, real-time, and robust data for emerging disease outbreaks is important and can help to generate robust evidence that will support and inform public health decision making