The Carbon Pricing Panel is calling for action to put a price on carbon pollution, in a bid to “spur further, faster action ahead of the Paris climate talks.
The group of international leaders — convened by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim and Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — includes Angela Merkel, German chancellor; Michelle Bachelet, Chilean president; François Hollande, French president; and Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexican president, along with the presidents of Ethiopia and the Philippines.
The panel also includes California Governor Jerry Brown, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, and leading companies and financial groups U.S. pension giant CalPERS, ENGIE of France, Mahindra Group of India, and Netherlands-based Royal DSM.
Pricing carbon will help “steer the global economy towards a low carbon, productive, competitive future without the dangerous levels of carbon pollution driving warming,” the group says in a release.
The call to action comes ahead of the United Nations climate conference in Paris on Nov. 30-Dec. 11.
“There has never been a global movement to put a price on carbon at this level and with this degree of unison. It marks a turning point from the debate on the economic systems needed for low carbon growth to the implementation of policies and pricing mechanisms to deliver jobs, clean growth and prosperity,” says Jim Yong Kim in a statement. “The science is clear, the economics compelling and we now see political leadership emerging to take green investment to scale at a speed commensurate with the climate challenge.”
“Finance ministers need to think about reforms to fiscal systems in order to raise more revenue from taxes on carbon-intensive fuels and less revenue from other taxes that are detrimental to economic performance, such as taxes on labor and capital. They need to evaluate the carbon tax rates that will help them meet their mitigation pledges for Paris and accompanying measures to help low-income households vulnerable to higher energy prices,” adds Lagarde.