Podcast: Interview on The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen

Note: Interview starts at 31:56 timemark.

Our guest is James K. Boyce, senior fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We discuss the carbon dividend, which he has proposed as a way of transitioning to a lower carbon economy. In his recent books, he discusses how this can be implemented. If the atmosphere is a universal resource, owned by everyone, and a clean atmosphere is a scarce resource, then carbon polluters should pay for using it and everyone should be paid for that use. Putting a price on pollution would be the inexorable result of government limiting the amount of carbon emissions allowed overall, and would act as an incentive to reduce it. Everyone would get the dividend. High-income individuals who produce more carbon emissions would pay more, while lower income individuals would pay less and receive more in payment for others’ use of the atmosphere – the dividend. It should be noted that about 25% of U.S. carbon emissions are as a result of government use of fossil fuels. Some carbon revenue, as well as other resources, could be used to aid communities that have been harmed by historical carbon pollution and to help workers who are transitioning away from carbon-intensive industries.