Green Glossary: Carbon Tax

The Carbon Tax Center defines it as such: "A carbon tax is a tax on the carbon content of fuels—effectively a tax on the carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Thus, carbon tax is shorthand for carbon dioxide tax or CO2 tax."

In simple language, if you pollute...you pay. Consumer advocate and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader is a proponent of the carbon tax. "We simply cannot stem the free flow of greenhouse gases (GHG) without making them more expensive to emit," says Nader. He proposes a carbon tax "set to annual benchmarks to bring, with the expansion of solar energy, US emissions to at least 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050." In other words, an initial rate of $50 per ton of carbon dioxide emissions would result in $300 billion annually "back in the pockets of American taxpayers" and used to "finance a green industrial revolution, providing a boon of 10 million new green collar jobs in the first five years."

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