This articleoriginally appearedin the Huffington Post.

Putting a price on carbon is a reliable and cost-effective approach to reducing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. It spurs investments in clean energy technologies and it produces a stream of revenue that can be used in productive ways. No wonder it is increasingly popular — a recentpollfound that nearly seven of 10 Americans support a carbon tax.

Despite these benefits, some oppose carbon taxes on the grounds that they disproportionately hurt poor and middle-class households. After all, the critics say, lower-income households spend a higher percentage of their budgets on energy than rich ones do, and the price of energy produced from carbon-intensive fuels is likely to rise.

However,research from World Resources Instituteshows that putting a price on carbon — with either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade program — does not inherently help or hurt lower-income households (it is neither progressive or regressive, in economist-speak). Instead, it depends on how the policy is designed. We found that if a portion of the carbon pricing revenue is dedicated to helping the poor and middle class, these households are likely to be better off than they would be under alternative policy pathways. Specifically, a small portion of the revenue (perhaps 10 percent) would be sufficient to protect poor households from increasing energy prices, leaving the bulk of the revenue for other productive uses, such as supporting the middle class, spurring clean energy innovation, and promoting economic growth.

由于华盛顿州的选民会考虑，这个概念今年正在现实世界中播出Initiative 732，这将在美国建立首次经济范围的国家碳税。可以预见的是，批评家声称倡议732将“不成比例地影响低收入人士“ 和 ”make Washington’s regressive tax system … even more regressive。”

In fact, the Washington state carbon tax is designed to make the state’s tax system more progressive. Most of the tax revenue would be used to fund a reduction in the state’s sales tax. This would provide a boost for middle-class households, which spend a greater proportion of their income on sales taxes than wealthy households (because the rich devote more of their income to savings, services and out-of-state purchases).

On top of that, about 15 percent of the carbon tax revenue is specifically targeted to benefit the poor through a state-level match of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, which subsidizes the wages of low-income households. The EITC a is rare anti-poverty measure with bipartisan support, expanded by every president since Gerald Ford and supported by President Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan. The Washington State EITC expansion would provide a significant tax break for hundreds of thousands of low-wage workers and their families.

Far from being a regressive levy that hurts those who can least afford it, the Washington State carbon tax is crafted to help those who need it most.

美国和世界各地已经制定了进步的碳定价政策。例如，在不列颠哥伦比亚省的加拿大边境中，约有15％的碳税收收入以低收入气候行动税收抵免形式针对贫困家庭，其余的则用于资助其他税收。必威官网是真的吗一种recent studyof the British Columbia policy found it has led to increased income for the 40 percent of the population at the bottom of the income scale, even before accounting for the benefits from reduced emissions. California’s carbon pricing program is designed to be highly progressive as well, with at least 25 percent of revenues dedicated to programs that benefit disadvantaged communities.

Critics警告that carbon pricing will not do足够的解决穷人和中产阶级所面临的问题，但期望气候政策承担这一负担是不现实的。必威官网是真的吗碳税可以设计为成本效益减少排放，同时保护家庭免受无法负担的能源价格上涨。那是一个很好的公共政策。

因此，让我们同意对碳的渐进式价格提高，然后让我们讨论如何直接面对穷人和中产阶级面临的严重问题。