The United Nations recently released a report spelling out what we all already knew: climate change is getting worse, and every day it becomes more and more irreversible. President Biden and other world leaders have pledged to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but each year the world emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than the year prior. It’s clear that we need to actually start working to limit climate change, and we need to start within the US first.

The United States does have a branch of the executive department dedicated to environmental protections, the aptly named Environmental Protection Agency. But despite this name, the agency is not all too effective because of how low its funding is. In 2021, the EPA was budgeted $9,237,153,000, but in 1978 they received $5,498,635,000, which would be almost $23B in 2021. The EPA is running on less than half the money today than it was four decades ago. With budget deflation like that, no wonder the US can’t stick to its environmental promises. Obviously, nobody wants to increase their own taxes to pay for more government funding, but there is a lot of excess fat in the budget that could be trimmed for increased environmental funding. Defense and Medicare are two of the most funded and most bloated federal programs; their excess funding could instead be used to fund the EPA. Unfortunately, this approach would be unlikely to receive any political support. Most Republicans are already opposed to climate intervention, not to mention that no Republican or Democrat in Congress would cut defense funding, and no Democrat would reduce Medicare funding.

There are more ways to pay for environmental protection. One of the most effective ways would be to implement a carbon tax. A carbon tax would charge individuals for their emissions, incentivizing people to choose greener options. The appropriations could then be invested into research to develop greener technologies. Obviously there is the problem that products that pollute more are cheaper than green products. A lower income household may not be able to afford a fancy electric car, solar panels, or even ethically sourced food or clothes. As a result, poorer people actually would pay more in a carbon tax than richer people. We should not exempt anyone from a carbon tax, so a solution would be to lower income tax rates even more for lower income brackets so that everyone is still incentivized to lower their carbon footprint. Another option is to return the revenue from the carbon tax back to the people. This approach would be more likely to receive support from both sides of the aisle. A carbon tax is already part of the Democratic platform. If it were framed as lowing income taxes, while giving people an opportunity to lower their own taxes, Republicans, as the party of lower taxes, would be more likely to support the idea.