Yes it applies to the aff—our evidence specifically indicts Carbon Dividends.
Patterson et al. 21, July 2021, Jacqueline Patterson is a Senior Director at the NAACP for the Environmental and Climate Justice Program. Lorah Steichen is a Consultant in the Environmental and Climate Justice Program at the NAACP. Katherine Egland is a chair for the ECJ Committee on the NAACP National Board of Directors. Saleem Chapman is a Consultant for the Environmental and Climate Justice Program at the NAACP. Mandy Lee is a sector manager for the Centering Equity in the Sustainable Building at the NAACP ECJP. Zoe Lee-Park is an intern at the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program, “Nuts, Bolts, and Pitfalls of Carbon Pricing: An Equity-Based Primer on Paying to Pollute,” NAACP, https://naacp.org/resources/nuts-bolts-and-pitfalls-carbon-pricing-equity-based-primer-paying-pollute, Orr
“The belief that a tax-driven process is possible distracts from the more complex and deep-reaching political changes necessary to drastically cut carbon emissions, such as regulating against the extraction and use of fossil fuels and seeking the best and most inclusive ways of transitioning toward a regenerative economy—one that doesn’t leave vulnerable people and communities behind.” Cynthia Mellon, Policy Coordinator at the Climate Justice
Faulty Economic Justice Arguments. Carbon pricing proponents say: “Carbon pricing helps deliver economic justice while fighting climate change.”Reality: Token revenues distributed to environmental justice communities, via Carbon Fee and Dividend or other models, will never make up for the destruction resulting from the source of that revenue.100Some iterations of carbon pricing policy attempt to make-up for the shortfalls described above by claiming to advance economic justice or function as a revenue generator for “disadvantaged” communities. Communities that policymakers often characterize as “disadvantaged” have long experienced systemic discrimination and oppression in the United States, often as a direct result of the policies and systems designed and implemented by U.S. policymakers. The suggestion that these communities should have to rely on funds generated from cap-and-trade or other carbon pricing schemes—which disproportionately harm the very communities that are supposedly receiving financial benefits from carbon markets—is frankly insulting. Effective climate policy should deliver economic justice outcomes alongside environmental ones. This is not achieved through carbon pricing, even when revenues are distributed to most impacted communities. Our allies at the Indigenous Environmental Network state: “Accepting such revenue not only does not compensate for the damage to our air, bodies, environment, and nature, but also implicates the receiver in the extraction, pollution and natural disasters that such pollution causes.”