Exxon Mobil pledges $ 1 million to campaign for carbon tax

Exxon is the first oil company to fund the Americans for Carbon Dividends and joins the group's top three contributors: the Chicago Exelon Utility, the solar energy company FirstSolar and the American Wind Energy Association. Exxon's $ 1 million commitment brings the group's total funding to more than $ 3 million.

"Exxon's contribution today is a very important step in promoting Baker-Shultz's carbon dividend plan," said Greg Bertelson, Executive Vice President of the Climate Leadership Council.

Exxon has not responded to a request for comment.

Exxon – along with his oil colleagues BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total – is one of the founding members of the Climate Leadership Council, a group of companies, conservation groups and eminent personalities charged with developing a more detailed version of the four-point Baker document. Schultz policy.

Americans for Carbon Dividends was formed in June to promote this plan, presented as a conservative, free-market approach to tackling human-induced carbon dioxide emissions that fuel climate change. The burning of fossil fuels contributes a lot to these emissions.

The plan calls for the imposition of a carbon levy issued by businesses, which would start at $ 40 a tonne and gradually increase. Income from the tax would be returned to the Americans in the form of regular and automatic dividends.

The policy would also aim to level the international playing field with countries that do not tax carbon emissions by offering a discount on US imports entering these countries and imposing a royalty on their imports into the United States.