Carbon Fee and Dividend

The US net emissions of CO2 equivalent each year is about 5,800 million tons, or 15 tons per person per year. If a carbon fee of $100 per ton were introduced, it would add a $1 a gallon to gasoline for example. So costs of goods and services that incurred carbon emissions would go up. But, each person would receive back a dividend of roughly $1,500 per year. Since emissions disproportionally come from the wealthiest people (the top 30% are responsible for more than half of the emissions) a majority of people - about 70% would be better off under this scheme. Those people would be the poorest and those with more sustainable lifestyles.

Hence the intension of the scheme would be to incentivize people to become more sustainable, and therefore accelerate the transition to renewable (carbon free) energy sources.