Accepting a Carbon Tax?

Dec. 8, 2013

Regardless of politics or stand on global warming, many businesses are including a coming carbon tax into their long term planning.

Lee Harrison

The New York Times reports that more than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including five major oil companies – and two major utilities, American Electric Power and Duke Energy – are incorporating some form of carbon tax in their financial planning. “Both supporters and opponents of action to fight global warming say the development is significant because businesses that chart a financial course to make money in a carbon-constrained future could be more inclined to support policies that address climate change,” the Times reports. Maybe we are witnessing the beginning of the acceptance of science over politics, or at least the acceptance of reality over wishful thinking. Either way, the companies that plan for the future instead of fighting it are bound to have a market advantage. Years ago George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Today he might say companies that cannot foresee the inevitable are condemned to live in the past.

About the Author

Lee Harrison | Contributing Writer

Lee Harrison has been writing about the environmental, technical, and business aspects of the power industry since 1978, when he worked as an editor at McGraw-Hill’s Electrical Week newsletter. Since then he has been an editor for Business Week, a researcher with EPRI and a freelancer, writing articles for The New York Times, the EPRI Journal, T&D World, and other publications. He has also edited several books on environmental auditing. Harrison holds a BS in engineering from Northeastern University in Boston and an MS degree in journalism from Columbia University in New York City. He is also a former writing instructor at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.