Action Sheet for December 2015
CCL Monthly Conference Call, Saturday, December 5, 2015
Groups meet at 9:45am PT/12:45pm ET
The international conference call starts at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET
The conference call part of the meeting is just under an hour long, and groups
meet for another hour after that to take and plan actions.
Call-in number: 1-866-642-1665, passcode: 440699#
Callers outside U.S. and Canada, please use Skype: 719-387-8317, passcode 440699#
Retired Navy Rear Admiral
David Titley
Our guest for the December call is Dr. David Titley, a
professor of practice in meteorology at Pennsylvania
State University and the founding director of their
Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk. He
was also NOAA’s chief operating officer from 20122013. Before assuming these positions, he was a rear
admiral and the chief oceanographer of the U.S. Navy,
in which he served for 32 years. While serving in the
Pentagon, Dr. Titley initiated and led the U.S. Navy’s
Task Force on Climate Change. He recently joined CCL’s Advisory Board.
Suggested Actions
1. Write letters to the editor about the Paris climate conference.
2. Write letters to members of Congress expressing support for a global climate
agreement and the need for U.S. leadership going forward.
ACTION
Letters to the editor on the Paris climate meeting
The Paris climate change conference, formally known as the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change, is taking place Nov. 30 through Dec. 11, and is already a huge media story.
This provides us with a terrific opportunity to get our message onto the opinion pages.
Stories and commentary in the media about the Paris talks provide an excellent opportunity
for letters to the editor.
At your meeting this month, challenge your group to up the ante on letters to the editor in
December. Here’s how to do it:
1) Set a goal for how many letters your members will submit. Can you double your
numbers this month?
2) Bring copies of recent articles to the meeting and discuss ways to respond.
3) Pass a sign-up sheet around asking people to commit to sending in a letter this month.
4) Appoint an experienced member or good writer to be a consultant available to anyone
who wants someone to review their letter before they send it.
5) Set aside 10 to 15 minutes at your meeting for volunteers to begin LTE drafts.
6) Check in with your writers in a week and appreciate their efforts (or help them
overcome obstacles).
Our tech department has created an optional online tool for selecting a paper in your area
and sending in a letter to the editor regarding the Paris climate talks. Check it out here.
Possible talking points for your letters:
 A global agreement in Paris would be an important step to reduce risk of catastrophic
consequences of unchecked climate change – sea level rise, food shortages, greater
frequency of extreme weather events.
 Pope Francis, in his encyclical and speeches made in the U.S., has pointed to the moral
imperative to address climate change in order to protect the world’s poorest people
who contributed the least to the problem we now face.
 While commitments most countries are making to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are
encouraging, collectively they will fall way short of what’s needed to stay within the 2
degrees Celsius of warming that scientists regard as manageable.
 Going forward, nations will need to revise their commitments to be far more ambitious
if we hope to avoid breeching the 2°C threshold.
 The U.S. can provide leadership to improve commitments by implementing a steadilyrising fee on carbon-based fuels. Returning all revenue to households would allow us to
set a price high enough to achieve the desired reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
 Other nations will have a strong economic incentive to price carbon effectively if U.S.
carbon fees are coupled with border tariffs on goods from countries lacking an
equivalent price on carbon.
 George Shultz, former Secretary of State under President Reagan, supports the marketbased approach of placing a fee on carbon and returning revenue to households.
 President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from power
plants, is running into stiff opposition in Congress. But just saying “no” to the Clean
Power Plan is not an acceptable option. Those who oppose the EPA regulations should
consider the market-based approach of a revenue-neutral carbon fee as an acceptable
alternative to regulation.
ACTION
Write letters to Congress about the Paris talks
The global agreement on climate change, expected to be completed in Paris, is a huge step
forward to reduce the future risks of climate change. Some members of Congress, however,
are taking actions to undermine this global effort, and so now would be a good time to write
to our representatives and senators to express our support for a global climate agreement
and suggest ways that Congress could demonstrate American leadership as the accord
moves forward.
At your meeting this month, write a letter to one of your members of Congress referencing
the climate conference happening in Paris.
Our incredible tech department has created an optional online tool for sending an email letter to
your members of Congress regarding the Paris climate talks. Check it out here.
Suggested outline:
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If this is your first letter, open by introducing yourself and share why you consider
climate change to be an important issue.
Mention the Paris climate conference and express your support for a global
agreement to reduce the risks of climate change.
Ask your member of Congress to take actions that will strengthen the climate
agreement moving forward, such as enacting a revenue-neutral fee on carbon with
money returned to households.
If your representative is a Republican, ask them to cosponsor the Gibson climate
resolution, H.Res. 424.
If your senator is a Republican, ask them to join the Senate Energy and Environment
Working group.
Ask for a response.
Points that can be made:
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If you are a person of faith, particularly Catholic, say that Pope Francis has inspired
you with his call to protect the poor and be good stewards of God’s creation.
While the global agreement will be a good step forward to avert the worst
consequences of climate change, the agreed targets for reducing carbon emissions
must be revised to be more ambitious. The U.S. can provide leadership for
improving those goals by enacting a rising fee on carbon that returns revenue to
households and implementing border tariffs on good from nations that lack an
equivalent carbon price.
George Shultz, former Secretary of State under President Reagan, supports a
market-based, revenue-neutral approach to pricing carbon known as Carbon Fee
and Dividend.
A study from Regional Economic Models, Inc. shows that Carbon Fee and Dividend
can reduce U.S. carbon emissions 50 percent within 20 years while ADDING 2.8
million jobs to the economy.
LASER TALK
Border Tax Adjustment
CCL’s policy includes a border adjustment on goods imported from or exported to countries
without an equivalent price on carbon. This adjustment would both discourage businesses
from relocating to where they can emit more CO2 and encourage other nations to adopt an
equivalent price on carbon. Together, the tax on imports and refund on exports are called
the “border adjustment” (green boxes in the Figure 1 below).
The border adjustment would be as fair and accurate as possible for similar goods based on
their carbon emissions. The refund to exports would come from the tax imposed on imports
(Figure 2). The fee (blue boxes in Figure 1 below) on fossil fuels is a separate pot than the
border adjustment pot. Fossil fuel imports to the United States are assessed the fee (not
part of the border adjustment), and fossil fuels exported from the United States get no
refund.
Figure 1: An illustration of how CCL’s border adjustment works. Boxes in blue are subject to the
fee, boxes in green are subject to the border adjustment. Carbon-intensive goods produced
domestically that stay in the United States are not touched; it is assumed they will bear the
burden of higher fossil fuel costs because of the upstream assessment point for our fee.
Figure 2: Revenues from the fee and the net of the border adjustment (p. 33 of the main report)
go into two separate pots. The fact that the border adjustment is positive indicates a predicted
“carbon trade surplus,” where more carbon intensive goods are imported than exported.
Therefore, at least 20 years out, the border adjustment should be self-funding, with more revenue
collected on carbon-intensive imports than spent on rebates for carbon-intensive exports.