Resolution Calling for Support of National Carbon Fee and: Dividend Legislation:
WHEREAS, the costs of climate change—including destabilized weather and extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and health impacts—now pose a substantial threat to the health, prosperity, and security of Chicagoans and all Americans; and
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago recognizes that rising carbon emissions are exposing and will continue to expose Chicagoans to the risks of increasingly extreme heat in the summers, heavier rainstorms, more frequent and severe flooding, and stresses on the public health and economy; and
WHEREAS, presently, the environmental, health and social costs of carbon emissions are not included in the price of fossil fuels, but rather these externalized-costs are borne by all Chicagoans, Americans, and the world's citizens; and
WHEREAS, Chicago and cities across the country have pledged to uphold the Paris Agreement committing to aid in limiting the increase in global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrjal levels; and
WHEREAS, economists overwhelmingly support a "carbon tax" or "carbon fee" as the most effective, most efficient way to reduce emissions, and sound economic policy in its own right.
WHEREAS, Carbon Fee & Dividend will place a fee on fossil fuels at the source (the well, mine or port of entry), beginning at $15 per metric ton of C02 equivalent emissions, and steadily increase annually at the rate of $10 per metric ton; and
WHEREAS, all revenues so collected will be returned to American households on a per capita basis as a monthly dividend, more than offsetting any increased costs of carbon-based products in most American households; and
WHEREAS, a border adjustment will assess a fee or rebate on goods traded with foreign countries which do not establish a comparable price on carbon emissions, thus protecting American businesses from foreign businesses who do not incur the costs of carbon pricing measures; and
WHEREAS, Carbon Fe...
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