Remember global warming Back in December, the threat of
climate change was thundering, and the rich countries agreed to cut their
carbon-dioxide and other green-house-related emissions. Since then, interest has
cooled markedly, and many European countries are already running away from the
promises they made so loudly a few months ago. But there has been much talk, and
a bit of action, to encourage renewable (可更新的) energies such as wind, hydro,
solar and all living organisms. These emit no greenhouse gases, but tend to cost
more than coal, oil or gas. The better, simpler idea is to
remember that the easiest way to reduce something is to tax it—in this case, by
taxing the carbon content of power. The dirtier the power, the more tax it would
pay. So dirty coal would be more expensive than clean coal, which would see its
price rise in relation to oil, which would be even more expensive compared to
gas, which would lose some of its price advantage over renewables.
Unless a carbon tax was so huge as to be economically crippling, it would
not remove the price differential (差别) between all renewables and fossil fuels.
But it would narrow that gap, by fixing the differing environmental costs into
the price—a useful principle in itself. It would also give renewable producers a
strong incentive to cut costs, and fossil-fuel suppliers an motivation to clean
their products. Precedents suggest strongly that a carbon tax
would be effective. But the disadvantage to carbon taxes is political. After
almost a decade of trying, the European Union gave up an attempt at a European
carbon tax last year. Germany’s ruling coalition is fighting against a proposed
energy tax. In America, politicians believe that even mentioning the notion is
certain death. But many of the political objections could be met if a carbon tax
were made up for the loss elsewhere, for example by lowering payroll or sales
taxes. There is always suspicion when governments come up with clever new ways
to tax, and rightly so. The response to that suspicion should be to win the
argument, not to abandon it. The reason why many countries stopped enforcing carbon tax eventually
is mainly that ______.
A. governments had tried to put it into effect for many years but with no
conspicuous result
B. if one country made up the loss by paying the carbon tax, other countries
will follow it
C. governments were afraid of being suspected if they adopted the new
tax
D. governments had been discussing what to do with carbon tax for a long
time, but they hadn’t come to an agreement