TAX THE EXTERNALITIES:

[S]ince 2009, unsubsidized solar- and wind-electricity costs have plummeted 90% and 71%, respectively. Support for clean energy unites vast majorities of Americans, and the desire for action on climate change now enjoys the backing of nearly two-thirds of the public. Just as the traditional business-driven pressure to ignore climate change has shriveled, major business interests -- including the American Petroleum Institute, the Business Roundtable, and the Chamber of Commerce -- are pressuring lawmakers to come up with predictable and transparent climate policies.

For decades, Democratic lawmakers benefited from the environmental left's staff, funding, research, media contacts, grassroots organization, and legislative and lobbying resources, while Republican lawmakers enjoyed extremely limited support -- and plenty of loud opposition -- from these same groups. But now, for the first time in a generation, the formation of a durable, effective climate coalition across partisan lines appears feasible. The Eco-right is at the helm of this resurgent bipartisan interest.

When one of your authors coined the term "Eco-right" in 2013 to describe a handful of scrappy, conservative-leaning non-profits and think tanks working to guide and embolden the right on climate-related issues, there was a vanishingly small number of Republican lawmakers who would go on record saying that America should lead on climate-risk mitigation. The movement had -- and continues to have -- only a fraction of the size and power of the environmentalist left. But its collection of young, energetic civic enterprises is already influencing Republican lawmaking and rhetoric in important ways.

As the Eco-right gained steam and a growing number of voters began to experience the real-world effects of climate change, GOP leaders started pivoting on the issue. The growing recognition of the need for an alternative to the left-wing climate agenda came to a head in the wake of the party's congressional losses in 2018. That year, Eco-right groups guided Republican leadership in assembling the GOP's first-ever climate-policy package. Several of these proposals eventually become law, including a tax credit for carbon capture that valued carbon dioxide at $35-$50/ton.

During the 2019-2020 congressional session, the Eco-right teamed up with Republican lawmakers again to introduce or co-sponsor dozens more emissions-cutting bills, ranging in scope from a narrow bill to help farmers and ranchers profit from climate-friendly soil-management techniques to several economy-wide, revenue-neutral carbon-tax proposals. This legislative momentum culminated in the passage of the American Energy Innovation Act (AEIA) -- introduced by Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia -- as part of the December 2020 omnibus spending package. Between the AEIA and another provision limiting hydrofluorocarbon emissions, the omnibus was likely the most significant climate-change legislation in American history.

As a new era in climate politics is dawning, many conservative leaders of the next generation are dedicating their careers to ensuring that the results are both effective and practical. But what "effective and practical" climate policy looks like is a difficult question that splits the Eco-right into two distinct camps. To make sense of the debate between them, we need to unpack the suite of climate policies that align with conservative principles. This will also help us determine where the two sides' efforts might be fused together into an appealing climate agenda.

FIRST PRINCIPLES

The task of formulating an Eco-right agenda raises an important question: What is the objective of conservative climate policy? The answer could consist of a numerical warming target, such as keeping global temperature increases below two degrees Celsius. It could be stated in more general terms, as in the phrase "a clean and abundant energy future." Or it could be cast in terms of political economy -- "de-carbonizing as quickly as politically possible without causing excessive economic harm," for instance.

It isn't hard to see why the question is so vexing. Climate policy is full of high-stakes trade-offs, and determining the most prudent course of action requires an incredibly complex cost-benefit analysis that incorporates hard-to-measure factors, uncertainty, and ethical parameters. The costs of both action and inaction are typically measured in dollars, but they encompass everything from economic progress and national security to beauty, functioning ecosystems, and even life itself. Further complicating matters is the fact that the costs are uncertain, and are unevenly spread over time and space. Whether we weigh the costs of climate policy against the worst-case climate impacts, the best-case impacts, or something in between is a thorny question of risk tolerance.

Although cost-benefit analyses are indefinite and even dehumanizing, there is simply no better method for determining whether a given climate policy is too costly or insufficiently effective. And despite the ubiquity of the phrase "the science says we must," the best climate science can do is give us a probabilistic distribution of climate-change impacts under a given emissions scenario. In other words, science can help us understand the consequences of our actions, but it has little to offer in terms of solutions.

The best we can do, therefore, is engage in some well-calibrated version of this utilitarian method to weigh priorities, advance alternative goals and policies, and defend our positions against those promoted by the left. Conservative principles can inform how we assess the trade-offs of different approaches and help distinguish serious environmental policies from unserious alternatives. [...]

Taxation is another tool at conservatives' disposal. Despite Republicans' general opposition to tax increases, taxing pollution is a popular option among many on the Eco-right. Since taxation doesn't require government tracking of energy use or technology, it offers an effective solution that is both administratively and practically simple to carry out -- especially when compared to complex regulatory regimes. Taxation of pollution would operate as a powerful innovation signal throughout the economy and require no foresight or guessing on the part of government actors as to where the most important technological breakthroughs will originate. It would raise revenue that can be recycled into tax cuts or paid directly to citizens through dividend checks, and represents the most efficient policy instrument available for promoting mass adoption of existing low-carbon technologies. Finally, taxation is the only instrument that allows the United States to assert power over the de-carbonization policies of other countries, as a carbon tax imposed on imports (and removed on exports) would encourage America's trading partners to enact their own carbon taxes.

Un-taxation as a solution to climate change has a natural appeal to the Eco-right, given the popularity of tax cuts among Republicans more generally. Some on the Eco-right advocate eliminating taxes on zero- or low-emission forms of energy, as well as cutting taxes on low-carbon alternatives in emissions-producing industries.

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