Conference on Pricing Carbon Emissions

Wesleyan University, in conjunction with the Price Carbon Campaign, an umbrella organization of climate-policy advocates, is convening a fall conference that will address new approaches to carbon pricing. Wesleyan University’s College of the Environment was established in 2009 to help students become better stewards of the Earth.

Wesleyan’s Carbon Pricing Conference begins Friday, November 19, 2010 and runs through to Sunday, November 21, 2010. Headline speakers include climatologist Dr. James Hansen, author-activist Bill McKibben, and environmental-justice lawyer and advocate Angela Johnson Meszaros.

Carbon pricing is vital to reducing CO2. According to economist Charles Komanoff, director of the Carbon Tax Center, “only with a predictable and steadily rising price on CO2 emissions—one that rewards sustainable forms of energy without harming Americans—will the US be able to curb our carbon emissions and oil dependence. A direct and transparent fee on fuels’ carbon content will give entrepreneurs and families the incentives they need to put industries and households on a profitable low-carbon diet.”

Despite the need for large scale reductions of CO2, carbon emissions continue to increase and this is destabilizing the Earth’s climate and driving global warming. The conspicuous absence of legislative progress in the US this summer makes the carbon emissions pricing conference prescient.

According to Laura Bonham, deputy director of Progressive Democrats of America.“With the continuing failure of the cap/trade/offset mechanism to gain support in Congress, it’s time for climate policy makers and concerned citizens to rethink carbon-pricing options. This conference will allow a broad spectrum of climate activists to seek a common agenda that will define the basic principles of good climate legislation, beginning with putting a clear price on carbon.”

A list of confirmed speakers and registration information can be found at www.pricingcarbon.org/.