Carbon taxes like the ones being proposed by current and former member of Congress are unlikely to increase the deployment of zero -carbon energy technologies and would only modestly increase the incentive for utilities to shift from coal to gas, a new Breakthrough Institute analysis finds absent continued Congressional authorization of existing low-carbon energy subsidies, the price incentive for the deployment of zero-carbon energy sources would decline by between 50 to 80 percent.

These findings are consistent with the findings of other recent studies (MIT 2012) that find that a $20 per ton carbon tax— rising slowly to $90 per ton by 2050 — would have an only modest effect on emissions. Where those studies looked at the first-, second-,  and third-order effects of carbon pricing, including effects on price indexes, equity of taxation, and broader emissions reductions, ours is focused exclusively on the impact of carbon pricing on the deployment of zero carbon energy sources.