The Great Debate

Home destroyed nearly five months ago during the landfall of Superstorm Sandy in Mantoloking, New Jersey March 22, 2013. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

The effects of climate change, driven by carbon pollution, hit Americans harder each year. Extreme weather events like hurricanes, wildfires and droughts are growing ever more frequent and severe.

Beyond our borders, these changes are hitting developing nations.

Since our nation’s founding, America has stood as an example for the world. Now, we owe it to ourselves and to other nations, who look to Washington, to lead the way on climate change by putting a price on carbon pollution and taking other steps to minimize the harm being done to developing nations — and our own.

In many of the world’s poorest regions, the sun scorches drought-stricken farmland and parches freshwater sources. Fierce storms bring ravaging floods. Warming, rapidly acidifying oceans and shifting seasons drive off economically valuable species and foster pests and disease.

This year, the worst flood in a decade killed at least 38 people in Mozambique and left 150,000 homeless. Warmer weather allows malaria-bearing mosquitoes to move into previously unaffected altitudes, infecting cities like Nairobi, which had purposely been built above the “malaria line.” Ten of the 15 largest cities in the developing world, including Shanghai, Mumbai and Cairo, are at risk of flooding from rising sea levels or coastal storm surges. Rising seas are swallowing low-lying land in countries such as Bangladesh and India.

With Lisa Jackson, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stepping down, President Barack Obama is losing one of the few people left in Washington who was willing to speak up about global warming and to push for significant measures to curb its impact. During her tenure, Ms. Jackson was frequently denounced by GOP members of Congress and all too often reined in by Obama. Despite his and Congress’ failure to pass legislation addressing global warming, Ms. Jackson advanced a regulatory agenda to pick up some of the slack.

She managed to see that fuel efficiency standards will increase by 2025, enact stricter pollution controls that must be met before any construction of new coal-fired power plants, and established EPA’s “endangerment finding,” bringing carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases (GHGs) under the Clean Air Act. Her departure, however, highlights the failings of the Obama administration to address global warming in a significant way. In his second term, the president can change that by pushing to enact a carbon tax.

A carbon tax would place a fee on polluters that emit GHGs like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. It should be applied at major sources of GHG emissions: coal-fired power plants, petroleum refineries and importers, natural gas processors, and cement, steel, and GHG-intensive chemical plants. This tax would prod us away from dirty fossil fuels and toward clean energy alternatives to avert global warming while raising considerable revenue.