Letter writer Barbara Alexander is correct that a strict “carbon tax” is indeed regressive, hurting low-income households who are most vulnerable to price increases (“Don’t hurt poor while helping the environment,” Jan. 22). But she unfortunately ignores the essential second part that makes this policy beneficial to all but the highest income households.

Carbon fee and dividend, or cashback carbon pricing, where all carbon fee revenues are returned as periodic equal payments to every household, provides real benefits to working families while incentivizing a faster transition to a healthier, clean-energy economy.

More economists have endorsed cashback carbon pricing than any other policy. They understand this to be the most effective and equitable climate policy available. Our Canadian neighbors currently enjoy periodic carbon dividend payments that more than offset price increases and provide real benefits to low- and middle-income households.

Furthermore, the pressure on the U.S. to join every other developed nation in the world who already price carbon pollution will only increase as the EU and UK are now calibrating “carbon tariffs” to hit products and services imported from countries, like the U.S., without a price on carbon pollution.

Between the economic benefits to our citizens and industries, and the liabilities from increasing climate disruptions hitting our most vulnerable populations, Alexander should reassess the merits of carbon pricing, which the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consistently describes as a “necessary condition” for stabilizing the climate crisis.

Peter Garrett, Ph.D., Earth Science 

Citizens Climate Lobby

Winslow