Contention 1: Inherency

No Carbon Tax now

Gelles, 2015
[David Gelles, Staff, The New York Times, We Have a Climate Pact. Now We Need Laws, New York Times,
December 20, 2015. (Lexis)] (NSB)

One approach that could deliver significant gains, and be introduced on a national scale and across
industries, is a carbon tax, or carbon cap-and-trade system, which would establish a price for carbon
emissions. California has a cap-and-trade program, as do a growing number of other countries. But
national efforts have not gained traction in Congress.

Plan: The United States federal government should adopt a revenue neutral carbon
tax to substantially restrict carbon emissions including reducing the marginal
corporate tax rate and a border-adjustable industrial externality excise tax in addition
to implementation of a Top Runner program for energy efficiency of corporate
equipment.
 ADV-Warming

The poor and vulnerable will be affected the most—must cut emissions, adaptation
alone cannot solve – people are dying
Suzanne Goldenberg, journalist, “Climate Change: The Poor Will Suffer the Most,” THE GUARDIAN, 3
—30—14, www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/31/climate-change-poor-suffer-most-un-
report, accessed 4-23-16.

Pensioners left on their own during a heatwave in industrialised countries. Single mothers in rural areas.
Workers who spend most of their days outdoors. Slum dwellers in the megacities of the developing
world. These are some of the vulnerable groups who will feel the brunt of climate change as its effects
become more pronounced in the coming decades, according to a game-changing report from the UN's
climate panel released on Monday. Climate change is occurring on all continents and in the oceans, the
authors say, driving heatwaves and other weather-related disasters. And the changes to the Earth's
climate are fuelling violent conflicts. The UN for the first time in this report has designated climate
change a threat to human security. The overriding lesson of this report, the scientists said, was that
unless governments acted now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adopt measures to protect
their people, nobody would be immune to climate change. "There isn't a single region that thinks we can
avoid all the impacts of even 2 degrees of warming by adaptation – let alone 4 degrees," said Dr Rachel
Warren of the Tyndall centre for climate change research at the University of East Anglia. "I think you
can say that in order to keep global temperature rises at 2 degrees we need to reduce emissions greatly
and rapidly, but even at 2 degrees there are still impacts that we can't adapt to." "We live in an era of
manmade climate change," said Dr Vicente Barros, who chaired the report. "In many cases, we are not
prepared for the climate-related risks that we already face. Investments in better preparation can pay
dividends both for the present and for the future." But those who did the least to cause climate change
would be the first in the line of fire: the poor and the weak, and communities that were subjected to
discrimination, the report found. Scientists went to great lengths in the report to single out people and
communities who would be most at risk of climate change, with detailed descriptions of locations and
demographics. "People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally or otherwise
marginalised are especially vulnerable to climate change," it said. One impact is through the reduction in
crop yields, which leads to higher prices. "The story is that crop yields have detectably changed. As time
goes on the poor countries that are in the warmer and drier parts of the planet will feel the crop yield
decreases early," said Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at
Princeton University. "When you get above two degrees and into the three- and four-degree range,
adaptation becomes less effective and even some of the wealthy countries that have advanced
agriculture start suffering." "People who were already disadvantaged, more of them are going to be
suffering from malnutrition," he added. In a further cruel twist, the report said climate change would
also make it harder for developing countries to climb out of poverty, and would create "poverty
pockets" in rich and poor countries. It already has. Maarten van Aalst, director of the Red Cross climate
centre and an author of the report, said the agency was already seeing evidence that the poor were
being hit hardest in weather-related disasters. "It's the poor suffering more during disasters, and of
course the same hazard causes a much bigger disaster in poorer countries, making it even poorer," he
said. There are already more weather-related mega-disasters such as heatwaves and storm surges
occurring under climate change. And the number of natural disasters between 2000 and 2009 was
around three times higher than in the 1980s, Van Aalst said. "The growth is almost entirely due to
'climate-related' events," he said.

Global warming is real and anthropogenic—consensus among climate scientists

Cook et al, 2016
(John Cook, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, School of Psychology, University of
Western Australia, & Skeptical Science—a non-profit science education foundation, Consensus on
consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming, Environmental
Research Letters 11 (2016) 13 April 2016. Available: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-
9326/11/4/048002/pdf.) (NSB)

The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%–100% of publishing
climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper. Those results are
consistent with the 97% consensus reported by Cook et al (Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024) based on 11,944
abstracts of research papers, of which 4014 took a position on the cause of recent global warming. A
survey of authors of those papers (N = 2412 papers) also supported a 97% consensus. Tol (2016 Environ.
Res. Lett. 11 048001) comes to a different conclusion using results from surveys of non-experts such as
economic geologists and a self-selected group of those who reject the consensus. We demonstrate that
this outcome is not unexpected because the level of consensus correlates with expertise in climate
science. At one point, Tol also reduces the apparent consensus by assuming that abstracts that do not
explicitly state the cause of global warming ('no position') represent non-endorsement, an approach
that if applied elsewhere would reject consensus on well-established theories such as plate tectonics.
We examine the available studies and conclude that the finding of 97% consensus in published climate
research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies.

Without action, we will exceed a 4-5 °C change, resulting in a laundry list of

catastrophes
Reynolds & Means, 2014
(Mark Reynolds, executive director of Citizen's Climate Lobby, and Eric Means, member of the Portland
chapter of Citizen's Climate, “Combat global warming by taxing carbon: Guest opinion,” The Oregonian,
July 20, 2014.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/07/combat_global_warming_by_taxin.html) (NSB)

Earlier this spring, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report detailing the
impact of climate change both now and in the future. The phrase "wake-up call" has been used so often
with regard to climate change that it has lost all meaning. Nevertheless, the IPCC's previous report about
impact was sobering:

* Farmers may not be able to grow enough food to feed a growing population.
* Climate change will continue to increase the severity of storms, droughts, floods and wildfires .

* By century's end, sea-level rise could displace hundreds of millions of people .

* Reducing poverty will be much more difficult.

* Food and water shortages, along with migrating populations, will destabilize many nations.

To avoid worst-case scenarios, the world's leading scientists tell us we must contain the increase in
warming to 2 degrees Celsius. The IPCC warns that on our current trajectory , we're looking at 4-5 °C
warming, way beyond any ability our civilization has to manage or adapt.

Staying under 2°C requires the world to remain within a "carbon budget " of one trillion tons of carbon
dioxide emitted since the Industrial Revolution began. More than half that budget has been spent, and
corporations and nations control reserves of fossil fuels amounting to five times the amount of CO2 we
can safely burn. This is one budget we cannot afford to bust, yet we're on track to do just that within
two or three decades.

We must start now. A sustained overshoot of CO2 limits risks total extinction.
Ahmed 2010
[Nafeez Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, professor of
International Relations and globalization at Brunel University’s Politics & History Unit and the University
of Sussex School of Global Studies., Spring/Summer 2010, “Globalizing Insecurity: The Convergence of
Interdependent Ecological, Energy, and Economic Crises,” Yale Journal of International Affairs, 5.2,
Spring-Summer 2010. Available: http://yalejournal.org/wp-
content/uploads/2010/09/105208ahmed.pdf) (NSB)

Perhaps the most notorious indicator is anthropogenic global warming. The landmark 2007 Fourth
Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—which warned that
at then-current rates of increase of fossil fuel emissions , the earth’s global average temperature would
likely rise by 6°C by the end of the 21st century creating a largely uninhabitable planet —was a wake-up
call to the international community.5 Despite the pretensions of ‘climate sceptics,’ the peer-reviewed
scientific literature has continued to produce evidence that the IPCC’s original scenarios were wrong—
not because they were too alarmist, but on the contrary, because they were far too conservative.

According to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, current CO2 emissions are
worse than all six scenarios contemplated by the IPCC. This implies that the IPCC’s worst-case six-degree
scenario severely underestimates the most probable climate trajectory under current rates of
emissions.6

It is often presumed that a 2°C rise in global average temperatures under an atmospheric concentration
of greenhouse gasses at 400 parts per million (ppm) constitutes a safe upper limit—beyond which
further global warming could trigger rapid and abrupt climate changes that, in turn, could tip the whole
earth climate system into a process of irreversible, runaway warming.7 Unfortunately, we are already
well past this limit, with the level of greenhouse gasses as of mid-2005 constituting 445 ppm.8 Worse
still, cutting-edge scientific data suggests that the safe upper limit is in fact far lower. James Hansen,
director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, argues that the absolute upper limit for CO2
emissions is 350 ppm: “If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of
seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”9

A wealth of scientific studies has attempted to explore the role of positive feedback mechanisms
between different climate sub-systems, the operation of which could intensify the warming process .
Emissions beyond 350 ppm over decades are likely to lead to the total loss of Arctic sea-ice in the
summer triggering magnified absorption of sun radiation, accelerating warming ; the melting of Arctic
permafrost triggering massive methane injections into the atmosphere , accelerating warming; the loss
of half the Amazon rainforest triggering the momentous release of billions of tons of stored carbon ,
accelerating warming; and increased microbial activity in the earth’s soil leading to further huge releases
of stored carbon, accelerating warming; to name just a few. Each of these feedback sub-systems alone is
sufficient by itself to lead to irreversible, catastrophic effects that could tip the whole earth climate
system over the edge.10

Recent studies now estimate that the continuation of business-as-usual would lead to global warming of
three to four degrees Celsius before 2060 with multiple irreversible, catastrophic impacts; and six, even
as high as eight, degrees by the end of the century —a situation endangering the survival of all life on
earth.

Independently, increasing CO2 cause ocean acidification, replicating conditions that

killed 96% of all marine life—and we are doing it 10 times faster
The Earth Institute, 12
The Earth Institute, Columbia University, the Institute comprises more than 30 research centers and
some 850 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, staff and students, “Ocean Acidification Rate May Be
Unprecedented, Study Says: Few Parallels in 300-Million Year Geologic Record,” March 1, 2012.
http://www.earth.columbia.edu/articles/view/2951] (NSB)

In the last hundred years, atmospheric CO2 has risen about 30 percent, to 393 parts per million, and
ocean pH has fallen by 0.1 unit, to 8.1--an acidification rate at least 10 times faster than 56 million years
ago, says Hönisch. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that pH may fall another 0.3
units by the end of the century, to 7.8, raising the possibility that we may soon see ocean changes
similar to those observed during the PETM. More catastrophic events have shaken earth before , but
perhaps not as quickly. The study finds two other times of potential ocean acidification: the extinctions
triggered by massive volcanism at the end of the Permian and Triassic eras, about 252 million and 201
million years ago respectively. But the authors caution that the timing and chemical changes of these
events is less certain. Because most ocean sediments older than 180 million years have been recycled
back into the deep earth, scientists have fewer records to work with. During the end of the Permian,
about 252 million years ago, massive volcanic eruptions in present-day Russia led to a rise in
atmospheric carbon, and the extinction of 96 percent of marine life.
Marine mass extinction means total extinction
Craig, 2003
[Robin Kundis Craig, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, “Taking Steps Toward
Marine Wilderness Protection”, McGeorge Law Review, Winter, 2003. 34 McGeorge L. Rev. 155, (Lexis)]
(NSB)

However, economic value, or economic value equivalents, should not be "the sole or even primary
justification for conservation of ocean ecosystems. Ethical arguments also have considerable force and
merit." n862 At the forefront of such arguments should be a recognition of how little we know about the
sea - and about the actual effect of human activities on marine ecosystems. The United States has
traditionally failed to protect marine ecosystems because it was difficult to detect anthropogenic harm
to the oceans, but we now know that such harm is occurring - even though we are not completely sure
about causation or about how to fix every problem. Ecosystems like the NWHI coral reef ecosystem
should inspire lawmakers and policymakers to admit that most of the time we really do not know what
we are doing to the sea and hence should be preserving marine wilderness whenever we can - especially
when the United States has within its territory relatively pristine marine ecosystems that may be unique
in the world. We may not know much about the sea, but we do know this much: if we kill the ocean we
kill ourselves, and we will take most of the biosphere with us.

A carbon tax will work. British Columbia’s experience proves it will succeed.
Pedersen & Elgie, 15
[Thomas F. Pedersen, Executive Director, Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, University of Victoria,
and Stewart Elgie, Director, Institute of the Environment, University of Ottawa, “A template for the
world: British Columbia’s carbon tax shift,” In: Critical Issues in Environmental Taxation (L.A. Kreiser et al,
eds.), August 28, 2015. Available: http://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781785360220.00012.xml] (NSB)

By all yardsticks, BC’s carbon tax has been a success. Its primary objective has been achieved: fossil fuel
consumption on a per capita basis has fallen substantially, and interim emissions reductions targets set
by legislation have been met, albeit in part through the purchase of offsets. Some 70 per cent of British
Columbians now support the tax, and a majority would like to see it increase but with the new revenue
being directed toward green initiatives like home-energy-efficiency retrofits rather than further
corporate tax reductions. And there has been little negative political backlash to the tax; indeed the
centre-right BC Liberal Party that introduced the tax in 2008 was re-elected in 2009 to a third successive
term in part because the carbon tax attracted the environmental vote. BC’s experience shows that a
carefully thought-through tax shift that penalizes pollution while rewarding conservation and improving
environmental outcomes can be a winner. Indeed, the tax has received much attention on the
international stage. Professor Paul Ekins, head of the Green Fiscal Commission of the United Kingdom,
for example, has praised the BC carbon tax as being ‘among the best designed measures of its kind in
the world.’ The evidence presented here fully supports his observation.
A carbon tax is the best approach— 8 Reasons
Matthews, 2012
(Richard Matthews, consultant, green investor, and environmental blogger, "A carbon tax is more viable
than cap and trade", July 25, 2012. http://globalwarmingisreal.com/2012/07/25/a-carbon-tax-is-more-
viable-than-cap-and-trade/ ) (NSB)

A solid rationale for a carbon tax in the US comes from a recent book titled, The Case for a Carbon Tax,
written by Shi-Ling Hsu, a professor at the University of British Columbia. According to Hsu, a carbon tax
is the most effective mechanism to combat climate change and motivate the private sector while raising
much-needed revenue for governments. As reviewed by the Energy Collective, here are 10 reasons to
support a U.S. carbon tax from Hsu’s book.

1. It is economically efficient. An accurate disincentive for using carbon-based fuels could mimic
the increment of damage — the marginal damage — caused by each ton of carbon dioxide
released into the atmosphere. “The simple genius of a carbon tax is that it aggregates disparate
pieces of information, transmit
2. ting a price signal at every stage in which there is fossil fuel usage . . . no data collection is
required and no model is required.”

2. It avoids creating physical capital that could actually harm the environment — e.g. coal-fired power
plants. “The problem with capital is that once we have it, its high cost makes it difficult to dispose of.”

3. It doesn’t interfere with other regulatory instruments or jurisdictions. “A carbon tax would have the
advantage, because of its simplicity, of forming the strongest foundation upon which other policies can
stand.”

4. Government is better at reducing bad actions than increasing good actions . Taxes work better than
subsidies.

5. Incentives for innovation — price effects. It would impact emissions not only from the largest carbon
sources such as power plants and industrial facilities but all carbon sources.

6. Incentives for innovation — price breadth. It focuses new products and services no matter how much
money can be saved by using less electricity or electricity from a different source, e.g. renewables.

7. It is easy to administer. There are no “offsets” as would be needed with a cap-and-trade program .
“Awarding an offset for a project that purports to avoid emissions increases rather than actually
reducing them is a tricky proposition.”

8. International coordination is doable. “An international accord based on a carbon tax scheme would
avoid the unfortunate appearance of China being allocated some cap amount by an external
bureaucracy.” It “would not represent… a binding limit to economic growth.”

9. It raises badly needed revenue. There is a lot of money that could be raised from discouraging carbon
emissions. However, the less carbon emitted, the lower revenues would be.

10. It avoids the risk of catastrophe. In the long-run, this is the ultimate measure of efficiency from a
public welfare perspective.
A carbon tax may succeed where emissions trading schemes have failed because a tax sends a clear and
consistent message to the markets with little opportunity for speculative manipulation.
 ADV- Clean Tech

New clean tech revolution is coming. US action now means the difference between
leader or Luddite
Gordon etal, 13
[Kate Gordon is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, previously served as the Vice
President of Energy Policy; Robert Borosage is the founder and president of the Institute for America’s
Future, graduate of Yale Law School and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from George
Washington University; Derek Pugh is a senior fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future; The Green
Industrial Revolution and the United States In the Clean Energy Race, Is the United States a Leader or a
Luddite?, December 2013. Available: https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/12/GreenIndustrial.pdf] (NSB)

A new green industrial revolution—driven by a variety of concerns and opportunities—is gathering

steam across the globe. In some regions, it is spurred by land and water scarcity. In others, it is driven by
rising concerns about catastrophic climate change. And in even more regions, new energy technology
and financial innovations have opened up exciting industrial and economic possibilities. Whatever the
cause of this transformation, at its center is a new approach to energy characterized by an increasing
commitment to renewable energy, energy conservation and efficiency, and a 21st-century approach of
generating and moving fuels and electricity that recognizes—not denies—our climate and natural
resource challenges. This growing commitment is already informing governmental , corporate, and
private decisions. It is beginning to affect how regions produce, distribute, and consume energy . Over
the next few decades, it will alter everything: where we live, how we travel, and how we think about
economic growth and prosperity. The commitment is only at its beginning stages; it will become the
source of expanding global markets and of millions of new jobs in a hugely diverse set of industries and
occupations, from cutting-edge research to installation of technologies such as rooftop solar panels and
utility-scale wind farms. The countries that lead this transformation will benefit enormously , not just
from breathing healthier air and drinking untainted water, but also from economic expansion in the
forms of new markets, profits, and jobs. The countries that lead this green revolution will lead the 21st
century. Those that ignore it will become this century’s Luddites. The question facing the United States
is clear: Which one will we choose to be, leader or Luddite ?

The U.S. is falling behind in clean energy investments. Must act now to prevent
economic decline.
Olen, 16
[John Olen, Staffwriter for Economy in Crisis: America’s Economic Report, “US Falling Behind China in
Green Energy Technologies,” May 29, 2016. http://economyincrisis.org/content/u-s-falling-behind-
china-in-green-energy-technologies] (NSB)

While the U.S. has made strides in increased oil and gas production and higher efficiency standards, we
still import much of the oil we use every year, which adds to our massive trade deficit . For every $1
billion in trade deficit we have, we lose 9,000 jobs. We must do a better job of protecting our economy
by making sure we are competitive with the rest of the world. Investing in green energies would create
jobs, promote innovation and new technologies, reduce pollution, and help reduce our dependence on
foreign oil. China has spent the time working to increase its energy supply and improve new
technologies to bring it into the 21st century, and it is now the largest producer of solar cells in the
world. The United States is a different story. In 2013, clean energy investments in the U.S. declined 8.4
percent from 2012. Total investment was $48.4 billion. If our politicians continue to selfishly squabble
amongst each other instead of addressing not only the economic concerns facing our country, but also
the environmental concerns, the United States will continue to fall further and further behind the rest of
the world in terms of clean energy and other beneficial technological innovations. If we invest now to
bring our nation to the forefront of new energy technologies we can assure that we will be competitive
in years to come. This is one of the things we must do to restore our economy to where it once was.

Carbon Tax allows the US to shift to the green economy

CS Monitor 13 (Christian Science Monitor, Carbon tax a win win for the economy and the environment,
3/12/2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2013/0312/Carbon-tax-A-win-win-for-the-
economy-and-the-environment)

A carbon tax would also reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy and create better
market incentives for conservation, the use of renewable energy sources, and the production of
energy-efficient goods. The permanent change in price signals from enacting a carbon tax would
stimulate new private sector research and innovation in developing energy-saving technologies and in
harnessing renewable energy. The implementation of a carbon tax also offers opportunities to reduce
and reform federal spending on other energy-related programs.

Prolonged economic downturn risks global war

Green & Schrage, 2009
(Michael Green, Senior Advisor and Japan Chair at CSIS and Associate Professor at Georgetown, Steven
Schrage, CSIS Scholl Chair in International Business and a former senior official with the US Trade
Representative's Office, State Department and Ways & Means Committee, “It's not just the economy”,
Asia Times, March 26 2009, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/KC26Dk01.html) (NSB)

However, the Great Depression taught us that a downward global economic spiral can even have jarring
impacts on great powers. It is no mere coincidence that the last great global economic downturn was
followed by the most destructive war in human history . In the 1930s, economic desperation helped fuel
autocratic regimes and protectionism in a downward economic-security death spiral that engulfed the
world in conflict. This spiral was aided by the preoccupation of the United States and other leading
nations with economic troubles at home and insufficient attention to working with other powers to
maintain stability abroad. Today's challenges are different, yet 1933's London Economic Conference,
which failed to stop the drift toward deeper depression and world war, should be a cautionary tale for
leaders heading to next month's London Group of 20 (G-20) meeting. There is no question the US must
urgently act to address banking issues and to restart its economy . But the lessons of the past suggest
that we will also have to keep an eye on those fragile threads in the international system that could
begin to unravel if the financial crisis is not reversed early in the Barack Obama administration and
realize that economics and security are intertwined in most of the critical challenges we face.
 ADV-Leadership

US international leadership is at its highest point in 20 years, but we must follow

through to maintain it
Upton, 2015
(John Upton, Senior Science Writer at Climate Central, with science and business degrees and a decade
of international reporting experience, America’s Global Plan for Warming Has Domestic Roots, Climate
Central, November 30, 2015. http://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-plan-to-save-world-from-
warming-19752) (NSB)

“The hybrid architecture of the new agreement that will be considered in Paris is consistent, in most
dimensions, with what the U.S. has been pushing for,” said Robert Stavins, a Harvard University
economist and expert on global climate diplomacy. He said the U.S. has been influential in convincing
other countries to support its plan for a new kind of climate agreemen t, and that it was ahead of the
curve in recognizing the need for it.

“The U.S. will be in a greater position of international leadership than it has been at any time in these
negotiations since the talks that led to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997,” Stavins said.

America’s nascent leadership on climate change has received boosts from recent Obama Administration
decisions that signaled to the rest of the world that the nation is becoming serious about curbing its
appetite for fossil fuel energy. Obama and his State Department say the Paris meetings will be successful
if it succeeds in sending a similar signal to the global energy industry — and to its financial backers.

“If we put the right rules and incentives in place, we’ll unleash the creative power of our best scientists
and engineers and entrepreneurs to deploy clean energy technologies and the new jobs and new
opportunities that they create all around the world,” Obama said. “There are hundreds of billions of
dollars ready to deploy to countries around the world if they get the signal that we mean business this
time. Let’s send that signal.”

US Compliance Key to sustained US leadership and Paris Success

Magill, 2016
(Bobby Magill, Senior Science Writer at Climate Central, focusing on energy and climate change, “2016
Election Critical to Success of Paris Climate Pact” Climate Central, April 21, 2016.
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/2016-election-critical-to-paris-climate-pact-20277) (KAK-NSB)

Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in Washington,
D.C., said that the next president could unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement
upon taking office, depending on when the agreement goes into full force. At least 55 countries,
representing 55 percent of global emissions, must ratify the Paris agreement before it takes full effect.
Any country can withdraw after three years. Should the U.S. bail from the Paris agreement, it would risk
serious diplomatic consequences, Diringer said. “The agreement is supported by virtually every country
on earth and is seen as mark of U.S. leadership,” Diringer said. “Walking away from the agreement
would instantly turn the U.S. from a leader to a defector . It might discourage some countries from
joining, but would also expose the U.S. to a serious diplomatic backlash, making it much harder to
persuade other countries to support our international priorities. Lessons about what will happen if the
U.S. were to waver on the Paris agreement can be learned from the global reaction to the U.S.
withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, said Scott Barrett, Lenfest-Earth Institute professor of
natural resources economics at Columbia University. “When George W. Bush declared that he would not
send the Kyoto Protocol — the climate agreement that Al Gore negotiated and that Bill Clinton signed —
to the Senate for ratification, the other signatories to this agreement stiffened their resolve, cut deals,
and made sure that Kyoto entered into force,” Barrett said. “However, once the U.S. withdrew support
for the agreement, Kyoto became vulnerable. Canada, for example, failed to adopt policies needed to
meet its obligations and eventually withdrew from the agreement. The Kyoto Protocol had other
problems, but international cooperation on climate change — as on most issues — can't succeed
without the support of the U.S.” In most countries, cooperation with such agreements is conditional,
and they’re often willing to play their part in achieving goals as a group if they see other countries
working hard to do the same, he said.

Hard power alone fails. Leadership is crucial to stop climate change, financial collapse,
terrorism, and disease.
Nye, 2008
[Joseph Nye is professor of International Relations at Harvard University, American power after the
financial crisis, November 3, 2008.
http://www.foresightproject.net/downloads/American_power_after_the_financial_crisis_Joseph_Nye_
3.11.2008.pdf] (NSB)

The problem for American power in the 21st century is that there are more and more things outside the
control of even the most powerful state . Although the United States does well on the traditional
measures, there is increasingly more going on in the world that those measures fail to capture . Under
the influence of the information revolution and globalisation, world politics is changing in a way that
means Americans cannot achieve all their international goals acting alone . For example, international
financial stability is vital to the prosperity of Americans, but the United States needs the cooperation of
others to ensure it. Global climate change too will affect the quality of life, but the United States cannot
manage the problem alone. And in a world where borders are becoming more porous than ever to
everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism , America must mobilise international coalitions
to address shared threats and challenges. As the largest country, American leadership will remain
crucial. The problem of American power after this crisis is not one of decline, but realisation that even
the largest country cannot achieve its aims without the help of others.

Failure to check newly-emerging diseases risks extinction

Keating, 2009
[Joshua Keeting, Associate Editor at Foreign Policy, The End of the World, Npvember 13, 2009.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/13/the-end-of-the-world/] (NSB)

How it could happen: Throughout history, plagues have brought civilizations to their knees . The Black
Death killed more off more than half of Europe's population in the Middle Ages. In 1918, a flu pandemic
killed an estimated 50 million people, nearly 3 percent of the world's population, a far greater impact
than the just-concluded World War I. Because of globalization, diseases today spread even faster -
witness the rapid worldwide spread of H1N1 currently unfolding. A global outbreak of a disease such as
ebola virus -- which has had a 90 percent fatality rate during its flare-ups in rural Africa -- or a mutated
drug-resistant form of the flu virus on a global scale could have a devastating, even civilization-ending
impact. How likely is it? Treatment of deadly diseases has improved since 1918, but so have the
diseases. Modern industrial farming techniques have been blamed for the outbreak of diseases, such as
swine flu, and as the world’s population grows and humans move into previously unoccupied areas, the
risk of exposure to previously unknown pathogens increases. More than 40 new viruses have emerged
since the 1970s, including ebola and HIV. Biological weapons experimentation has added a new and just
as troubling complication.

Failure to prevent terrorist attacks risks full-scale nuclear war

Ayson, 2010
[Robert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New
Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic
Effects,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Volume 33, Issue 7, July 2010. P. 571-593] (NSB)

But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear
exchange—are not necessarily separable. It is just possible that some sort of terrorist attack, and
especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a chain of events leading to a massive exchange
of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states that possess them. In this context, today’s and
tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to new
state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising the risks of a catalytic nuclear war
between the superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and
early 1960s as concerns grew about nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a
considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation where an act of nuclear
terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist
nuclear attack on the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could
plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they seem unlikely to be fingered as the most
obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be
involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well.
Some possibilities, however remote, do suggest themselves.
 Solvency
Plan is best form of carbon tax and avoids international circumvention, provides relief
to those most effected by increased energy prices and makes the US a leader on
climate reform.
Samans 9/7/16 “This practical three-part blueprint will restore U.S. growth and opportunity” (BA in
Economics and French, Tufts; Master's in International Affairs, Columbia.Managing director of the World
Economic Forum and chairman of the Climate Disclosure Standards Board. He previously served as
Special Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for International
Economic Affairs in the Clinton Administration, senior economic policy aide to Senate Democratic Leader
Thomas A. Daschle and Director-General of the Global Green Growth Institute)
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2016/09/07/a-21st-century-square-deal/

The Secretary’s infrastructure financing proposals and President Obama’s recent targeted regulatory
approach to climate action are very significant and encouraging.  But there are two additional initiatives
that would elevate and lend a certain moral imperative to her presidency, tapping into the universal
desire to leave the world a better and safer place for one’s children and grandchildren. The first would
take the Obama-Biden Administration’s health and clean energy research initiatives to a new level by
doubling federal funding on the cancer and Alzheimers epidemics, on the one hand, and alternative
energy, on the other, with the $10 billion per year in surplus funds generated by the two tax proposals
outlined above. The second would recognize that the fight against climate change requires a two-track
strategy: not only intensive development of new technology capable of replacing fossil fuels over the
long term but also widespread deployment of existing clean technologies in order to achieve a peak and
then accelerating decline in global emissions in the next 5 to 10 years, as advised by the scientific
community. We need a systemic lever to complement the emerging sector-specific and subnational
ones in the United States, and a political window is opening to do so via a carbon tax within the context
of a revenue-neutral and politically balanced reform of the corporate income tax, carefully configured to
be border adjustable under the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Specifically, the next
President should work with leaders on Capitol Hill on a balanced, revenue-neutral reform of the
corporate income tax that would include a major reduction in the marginal corporate rate from 35% to
potentially as low as 25% (the OECD average) in combination with a border-adjustable industrial
externality (or “sustainability”) excise tax, full expensing of certain highly energy-efficient capital
investments and requirement for contributions of $2 to $3 per hour of the value of part-time and
contract (1099) wages to the new multi-employer plan benefit plans described above for firms with 50
or more employees or contract workers. The Treasury Department would establish a schedule of excise
tax rates for a finite number of fossil-fuel intensive industrial products based on the industry-wide
average level of carbon embedded in each product on the list at a level corresponding to $25 per ton .
These rates would be applied in uniform fashion to the business-to-business (B2B) sale of all such
corresponding products whether domestic or imported and rebated on exports. While current
international rules do not permit the border adjustment of carbon taxes that are applied at different
rates to the same class of products as a function of their carbon content, they do for an excise tax that is
applied at the same rate on a non-discriminatory basis to all “like” products. It does not matter what the
policy motive was for imposing the tax; what is determinative is whether it is a tax on a product (as
opposed to a process input) and applied domestically and internationally on a non-discriminatory basis .
The Treasury Department would also be directed to designate a list of highly energy-efficient capital
equipment that would qualify for full expensing (immediate depreciation) based on the “Top Runner”
approach developed by the Government of Japan but augmented through consultations with the
business and environmental communities aimed at extending the list to additional industrial equipment.
This restructuring of corporate taxation would likely generate a sizable net tax reduction for the great
majority of firms (including particularly small businesses) and leave most others no worse off. This is
partly because the tax base is being broadened to include a substantial share of industrial imports that
are not now covered by any federal taxation. Net losers will likely be concentrated either on the coal, oil,
gas and cement industries and downstream industries that are disproportionate users of their products
(although the international competitive effects will be offset by the border adjustability) or firms that
have particularly large contract workforces and are not paying benefits. Even in these cases, the effect is
likely to be diffused somewhat by the ability of these firms to pass on some of the additional costs to
their customers. Between 10% and 15% of the carbon tax revenues would be dedicated to assistance of
lower-income households and communities most dependent on fossil fuel production , including coal-
dependent regions. This reform of corporate taxation would have five significant benefits: First, by
dropping the marginal rate to the OECD norm, it would remove a key incentive for companies to shift
their headquarters and production overseas, including through the tax-inversion international mergers
of recent notoriety, but without providing a net reduction in overall U.S. corporate taxation. Second, it
would put a price on carbon – the holy grail of climate policy – in what appears to be the least costly
available way in political terms, i.e., via a “business-to-business” (B2B) tax not visible to consumers on a
limited number of the most relevant products in the context of a revenue-neutral reform as well as via a
positive incentive in the form of a reduction in the installed cost of the most efficient industrial
equipment. This politically surgical but economically scalable carrot-and-stick approach would
substantially accelerate the decarbonization of the U.S. economy. And by ratcheting up the carbon
price-equivalent of the excise tax over time to encourage ongoing improvement in efficiency while
keeping revenue from the tax roughly constant, it might even render the power plant regulations
unnecessary over time, which would be another political selling point to the business community.
Further, the approximately $100 billion per year generated by this fee would finance not only the other
elements of this corporate tax reform but approximately 3% of it could also finance a special adjustment
assistance package for coal- and oil-dependent communities and their workforces going well beyond
existing federal programs. Third, it would provide a significant boost to entrepreneurship and small
business, which would experience a big tax cut, since firms with fewer than 50 employees and contract
workers would be exempt from the industrial excise tax and pro-rata worker benefit requirement but
qualify for the major marginal rate reduction. Fourth, the multi-employer benefit plan requirement for
contract employees would plug one of the worst and most rapidly growing holes in the U.S. safety net
without requiring a new federal spending program. Fifth, this reform would for the first time make a
significant U.S. tax border adjustable (imposed on imports and rebated on exports), partially making up
for the competitive disadvantage of the United States not having a value-added tax (VAT), which is
border adjustable and employed by virtually all of our major trading partners and thus perceived by
industry and labor to place our products at a disadvantage in international trade. Yes, economists argue
that exchange rates will adjust and wash out this effect, but exchange rate movements are dominated
even over extended periods by a host of other factors, so the help to our tradable goods industries
(think cars, airplanes, construction and farm equipment, for example) could be significant. If the United
States enacted this kind of carbon-related industrial excise tax regime, it would likely catalyze a new
wave of constructive international climate diplomacy. Countries with cap-and-trade schemes, which are
neither border adjustable under current rules nor currently meaningfulenough to affect behavior, might
well react to the legally smarter and environmentally more effective nature of this tax approach by
moving to emulate and perhaps even align with it. That would create the basis for what the world really
needs: a coordinated and progressively meaningful approach to carbon pricing across major industrial
economies. From Policy to Political Revolution Thus, a win-win-win realignment of incentives within the
economy to yield stronger growth with greater equity and lower environmental risk is technically,
fiscally and politically feasible. The three sets of structural reforms outlined above, in combination with
the related proposals already proposed by Secretary Clinton, would rebalance the economy in several
important and long overdue respects, including the creation of a comprehensive and adequately
financed framework for boosting workforce skills, incomes and security that truly puts investment in
people at the center of the country’s economic strategy. This agenda would open a new chapter in post-
crisis financial system reform, driving a fundamental shift of incentives within investment funds and
corporate executive teams to refocus them on job-generating and productivity-enhancing long-term
capital formation in the real economy as opposed to quick-buck strategies of cutting costs to the bone or
financial engineering. It would also significantly reduce existing tax and tariff incentives for the
offshoring of industrial production and related high value-added services jobs and provide a big boost to
innovation and small-scale entrepreneurship through a substantial cut in small business taxes and
increase in basic research and development in fields with enormous future commercial potential.
Moreover, this program would lessen the strain on family finances and create a corresponding boost to
aggregate demand through a strengthening of the federal and corporate “social contract” support
structure for education, retraining, family leave, retirement saving and unemployment insurance
coverage. And, it would set a “price” on carbon targeted to where it would make the most difference in
the fight against climate change. Just as the progressive wave of structural economic reforms beginning
with Teddy Roosevelt’s Square Deal significantly reduced both pre- and post-transfer inequality in the
United States during the middle of the 20th century, the more comprehensive set of reforms outlined
here represents a strategy to mobilize a full-court-press on inequality in the 21st Century largely via
“pre-distribution” – changes in the way the economy operates – rather than redistribution. At the same
time, it represents a growth strategy with both short- and long-term elements – a new approach to
boosting the rate as well as resilience of growth by the strengthening the economy’s fundamental
attributes, which everybody agreed at the time was a key learning from the financial crisis. These are the
elements of a more sufficient response to the erosion of public confidence in the country’s economic
future and engagement in the world – of the policy revolution that is required to respond credibly and
constructively to the accumulating economic frustration of many Americans. A serious effort like this to
rebalance the economy’s growth model, making it simultaneously more inclusive and robust, could also
be a tonic for our political system, offering the best conceivable hope for reversing Washington’s drift
into polarization and paralysis. It would offer a core, compelling purpose for the next Administration – a
comprehensive, structural upgrade of the American economy aimed at increasing the payoff to broad
living standards from growth and prioritizing the real economy – thereby conveying a larger, clearer
sense of mission and call to action. By communicating a fundamental change in course for the country, it
would give people of all stripes and generations (workers, entrepreneurs, mothers, seniors, Millennials)
a better reason than identity politics or their own pet concern to support a new president’s effort to
lead Washington out of its gridlock on these critical challenges. Invoking Theodore Roosevelt, perhaps
by referring to such a program as a “Square Deal for the 21stCentury” – or a “Real Deal” to prioritize the
“Real Economy” – could help by conveying the historic potential of and transpartisan precedent for such
an effort. Because of the distractions and doctrinal cul-de-sac of the past generation, much of our
economy’s institutional support structure for shared, sustainable progress has deteriorated or been
overtaken by changes in the economy. The recent improvement in the country’s finances and disruption
in its politics have created a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make the necessary repairs and
upgrades and, in so doing, assemble a dominant coalition of Democratic progressives and economically
results-oriented Independents and erstwhile Republicans not unlike the one that FDR mobilized
following the bust of the country’s last Gilded Age, shifting and enlarging the country’s political center of
gravity in the process.

Top Runner solves energy efficiency

Kimura 2010 (Researcher, Socio-economic Research Center, Central Research Institute of Electric Power
Industry) “Japanese Top Runner Approach for energy efficiency Standards”

The Japanese Top Runner Approach is a unique approach, setting mandatory energy efficiency standards
based on the most efficient product on the market. After the introduction of the Top Runner Approach
in 1998, there has been remarkable growth in energy efficiency of the targeted products . Although the
contribution of the Top Runner Standards to this efficiency improvement is not clear, the Standards
have been successful in accelerating the trend of energy efficiency improvement of some products, such
as room air conditioners and passenger vehicles. In these cases the Standards provided a clear direction
for product development aiming at higher energy efficiency and eliminating low efficiency products from
the market. There appear to be some preconditions necessary for successful operation of the Japanese
Top Runner Approach. One is the Japanese market structure, which is dominated by a limited number of
domestic producers. These are similar in that they all have high technological competency, could accept
strict standards (i.e., no producer is excluded from the market even if strict standards are strict), all had
incentives to develop energy efficient products to increase competitiveness with foreign producers, and
all complied with the standards even without strict sanctions. Another precondition is the existence of
technological potential for efficiency improvement. When these conditions were met, the Top Runner
Approach resulted in a substantial outcome . This case study implies that ambitious policy, matching
market conditions as well as technological conditions, can work very well to induce remarkable energy
efficiency improvement. Because such conditions depend on the country and the phase of technological
development, careful design and adjustment are required for effective policy-making.