Climate change is innately regressive. The wealthiest Americans contribute the most to carbon pollution, and yet the poor suffer the brunt of the impacts. Low-income families are more likely to live near crowded highways and dirty power plants, and they are also the least equipped to deal with loss and damage from severe weather or shocks to the food system. This is a market distortion: the costs of pollution are not borne entirely by the polluters. Thus, while a gallon of gas may cost $2.45 at the pump, the price jumps to $6.25 when factoring in health and environmental damages, according to a recent studyfrom Duke University. Who pays the extra $3.80? We all do, but the very poor bear a disproportionate share of the burden.

Lawmakers could remedy this injustice by forcing the price of fossil fuels to tell the truth about their actual cost. That means accounting for the social cost of carbon. Among economists and a small but growing number of conservatives, a carbon tax stands as the carbon-pricing policy par excellence: simple, elegant, and absent the hard limits on pollution that Republicans tend to resist. The dilemma is that, depending on how it’s crafted, a carbon tax could actually make economic inequality worse.

Read the rest at Think Progress.