A carbon dividend is a false promise made to prey on Black communities and allow the fossil fuels industry to use their neighborhoods as a dumping ground

Why Carbon Pricing and Trading Is a False Solution This paper finds that carbon pricing and trading systems are not very effective or equitable measures for curbing carbon emissions. Our research shows that these systems can often play out as what amounts to sophisticated international shell games, where little net decline in emissions occurs because the measures simply serve to transfer pollution from one location or one 9 country to another, depending on who can afford to pollute. Within the U.S., there is evidence that carbon pricing and trading can exacerbate existing inequalities by creating or worsening “sacrifice zones.” These zones are communities, often with BIPOC residents and households with low-income, in or near where significant fossil fuel-related pollution occurs. Thereby sacrificing the wellbeing of those communities to fuel the excesses of people living elsewhere. As consensus grows around the urgency of the climate crisis, we’re confronted with a range of false solutions that deepen inequalities and are insufficient to meet the scale and speed of needed changes. In many cases, the fight against climate change becomes a big business opportunity – with the same political and economic interests that are most responsible for the climate crisis championing supposed solutions. In fact, some of the worst environmental offenders co-opt the language of environmental advocates in order to protect their bottom line, neutralize climate legislation, and preserve the status quo. It is important to recognize that these false solutions not only fail to deliver on their environmental claims, but often worsen our ecological and economic crises. Carbon pricing falls short on many grounds. If we look at the lived experiences shared by residents of frontline communities in the US and around the world against carbon pricing schemes, we can critique the position from multiple vantage points: moral/ethical, religious and spiritual, human and civil rights, flaws with the economic reasoning, as well as socio-economic and environmental outcomes. There are four key reasons that carbon pricing and trading schemes are false solutions: #1: It misses the bigger picture – failing to tackle the root causes of the problem. Carbon pricing puts on the act of addressing the problem, but it fails to tackle the primary issue: burning fossil fuels to create energy. Instead, it aims to remedy the situation after the fact when the processes of extracting and burning fossil fuels have already taken place. #2: Carbon pricing schemes are not designed to produce localized emissions reductions. Too often, carbon pricing makes pollution hot spots worse and fails to reduce localized emissions--by design. 1,2 #3: The origins of the carbon pricing model design is establishing a mechanism that favors polluter/industry interests. Carbon markets were created so that governments and fossil fuel companies could “flexibly” meet emissions reductions standards without having to significantly change their own polluting practices.3 #4: Existing carbon markets haven’t produced significant emissions reductions at the rate we need.4,5 Carbon prices have been consistently too low. In fact, some studies, such as in British Columbia, Canada, have demonstrated that emissions have actually risen since a carbon tax was implemented.6 Policymakers have often had more success in reducing emissions by imposing direct regulations. “I don’t know who’s willing to gamble on climate change. We’re in a crisis, and we don’t have the luxury of taking a gamble.” Kathy Egland, Chair of the ECJ Committee of the NAACP National Board of Directors Advising the Federal Government against Carbon Pricing In May 2021, the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council released recommendations for the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool & Executive Order 12898 Revisions. In their list of Examples of The Types of Projects That Will Not Benefit A Community, they included the “establishment or advancement of carbon markets, including cap and trade.” Debunking “Equity” Arguments for Carbon Pricing While carbon pricing is often framed as the only, the best, or the most realistic solution to the climate crisis, in reality there are many far more effective means through which climate movements can build power and move toward a just transition. Climate justice activists and advocates should be aware of the ways that fossil fuel interests attempt to pacify and co-opt the climate movement. It is critical that we remain vigilant to the way that changes in language or framing are used to confuse, compel, and divide us. Below are the three most common ways that carbon pricing advocates falsely use equity framing: “Polluters Pays” Discourse: Rather than effectively and completely forcing polluters to absorb all the true costs of their pollution, carbon pricing allows polluters to buy their way out of stopping their pollution. Faulty Economic Justice Arguments: Token revenues distributed to frontline communities will never make up for the destruction resulting from the source of that revenue. “I can tell you that the fossil fuel industry takes a page, a few pages, from our civil rights playbook. They come into our communities, and they prey on economic desperation. They make false and idle promises which they have no intentions of keeping. It’s a simple message to explain to people how ‘this is a way you’re going to be able to put a roof over your family’s heads and food on your table.’ And then when we come in, it’s kind of difficult to come behind a message like that with something that might take a little more time but would be worth that investment of time.” Kathy Egland, Chair of the ECJ Committee of the NAACP National Board of Directors. Language of Urgency of “Realistic” Action: We don’t have time for false solutions like carbon pricing that fail to disrupt the power of the fossil fuel industry. There are numerous more effective, real solutions that promote the structural changes we urgently need. A Just Transition, not Cap and Trade, Will Advance Climate Justice Washington-based coalition Front and Centered, which includes the Seattle King County NAACP and Tacoma NAACP, makes it clear: “Washington state must cut greenhouse gas emissions from energy use in half within the next ten years if we have any chance in meeting long term state requirements to nearly eliminate pollution that causes climate change by 2050. To achieve this goal – let alone achieve it in a way that protects communities from the impacts of climate change and fossil fuel pollution and the pitfalls of an unjust transition – requires much more than a change in the price of oil, gas, or coal, it requires a Just Transition of our entire economy. There is no just pathway to our emissions goals that relies on the commodification of our air, land, and water, which we depend on for life.”