In a recent guest column that appeared in The Times Record, Peter Roff criticizes Biden’s climate policies (“Biden’s coming China solar boondoggle,” July 12). He asserts that U.S. climate policies are pointless because China will continue to emit greenhouse gases and will be rewarded for its abuses of human rights.

Mr. Roff is wrong. I will explain why, below. But, first, note that Mr. Roff is a conservative paid columnist from Washington DC, a regular on the far-right One America News platform for conspiracies and Trumpism and a senior fellow at one of the oldest climate-denying fronts for the fossil fuel industry. I’m a Mainer, an economist, and a grandfather. I just want to leave my family with the same quality of life I have enjoyed, and to do it with the most effective climate policy available – a tax on fossil fuels that reflects the cost to the future of the worsened climate caused by burning them. You decide who has an ax to grind.

But back to Mr. Roff’s essay. Let me highlight three ridiculous claims.

Mr. Roff asserts that Biden’s energy policies are a major cause of the huge increase in prices of fossil fuels. Nonsense! Since Biden’s inauguration, gas prices have risen roughly 100%. But U.S. crude oil supplied has declined since its pre-COVID peak, by less than 2% of world oil supplied. Very little of this decline is due to Biden’s energy policies because virtually nothing of Biden’s climate agenda has been enacted. (Remember Joe Manchin, who has blocked Biden’s plan at every turn?) You cannot draw a line from virtually no polices to a 2% fall in supply to a 100% increase in price.

Mr. Roff is correct that global climate control will fail without the participation of China and other major polluters. But, the implication is not that US action is pointless. Rather, we should lead the world and find ways to induce China to follow. Right now, the US is behind the EU and Canada in climate initiatives and one of the only democracies worldwide without a national carbon/fossil fuel price.

These countries tax not only the carbon/fossil fuels in their domestically produced goods but also plan to tax the carbon/fossil fuels in imported goods. If the U.S. joins them, a significant portion of the world’s economy will impose taxes on imports from China. And, since China uses more than three times as much carbon/fossil fuels in production (per unit of GDP) than does the U.S., the EU, and Canada, these taxes on China will be more than three times as large as the carbon tax on domestic producers. Facing these import taxes, China is likely to enact measures to reduce its carbon footprint. Ultimately, this and other threats can induce China to join us in a global effort.

Finally, Mr. Roff notes that a U.S. transition out of fossil fuels will in some cases require increased importation of select goods from abusers of human rights, such as China’s silicon used in solar panels and mined by the oppressed Uyghurs. He fails to mention that such exports are an infinitesimal portion of China’s trade, that China’s human rights (and international legal) abuses extend to all of China’s exports, and that the aforementioned carbon tariff on China’s goods will punish all of China.

More generally, consider the human consequences of a US carbon tax. It will (a) dramatically increase air quality in impoverished regions of the US; (b) punish the world’s butcher of innocent civilians, Russia; and (c) yield future benefits to the countries most vulnerable to climate change, the developing world. Our State Department has many tools to influence human rights abroad. On balance, the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions will overwhelmingly help the disadvantaged people of the world. To brand such policies as unethical misses the big picture of how the transition from fossil fuels will disproportionately benefit the poor.

Michael Jones lives in Brunswick.

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