Tax that rig.
Here’s something that could only happen in Scandinavia. The Guardian reports:
Norway is to double carbon tax on its North Sea oil industry and set up a £1bn [$1.6 billion] fund to help combat the damaging impacts of climate change in the developing world. … one of the most radical climate programmes yet by an oil-producing nation …
Norway will also plough an extra £1bn into its funds for climate change mitigation, renewable energy, food security in developing countries and conversion to low-carbon energy sources, Environmental Finance reported.
It will step up spending on new projects to combat deforestation in developing countries …
The Oslo government is also to spend £69m [$111 million] on buying carbon credits in 2013, to help offset its emissions, force through new building regulations to make all new homes carbon-neutral by 2015 and increase efforts to heavily cut emissions from cars, switching to electric vehicles.
It’s part of the government’s plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, “among the most ambitious goals in the world,” Reuters reports. But, not content to focus within its own borders, Norway wants to help other nations too.
Can you imagine the US taxing its own oil industry to send money to poor countries?
— David Roberts (@drgrist) October 12, 2012
That’s a rhetorical question.
