As reported yesterday, nationwide scores of college Republicans are organizing under the coalition Students for Carbon Dividends in support of a cap and dividend approach to addressing climate change. We have more on what they have to say on the subject matter.
“S4CD makes clear to our fellow young Republicans that we no longer need to choose between party orthodoxy and the mounting risks facing our planet,” says Kiera O’Brien, vice president of S4CD and a sophomore at Harvard University.
“Adult leaders have not acted efficiently or effectively on this issue, and we are stepping forward to fill the void,” says Alex Posner, a senior at Yale University and founding president of S4CD. “I think a lot of young conservatives are frustrated by the false choice between no climate action and a big government regulatory scheme. They feel pressured that those are the only two options, and they’re hungry for a conservative pathway forward on climate… The other thing that’s unique here is that the elder statesmen of the Republican Party are kind of uniting with the younger generation, to press the middle generation to act on climate.”
“You can still choose to consume or emit as much [carbon dioxide] as you wantit’s a free marketbut you’re just going to be taxed on that,” said Dylan Jones, President of the University of Kansas College Republicans, about the plan.
Elder statesmen and former Secretaries of State George Shultz and James A. Baker founded the Climate Leadership Council, which also advocates for the approach supported by the youth group. The Baker-Shultz plan would create a $40 tax on every ton of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, while also creating a border carbon tax, raising the prices of imported goods from countries that do not impose a carbon tax themselves. Those funds would be redistributed to Americans as a monthly dividend.
So far, 34 student groups from around the countryincluding 23 chapters of the College Republicanshave joined S4CD.