考研英语阅读例题：Worth a go 碳减排：值得花大力气.doc

Worth a go 碳减排:值得花大力气[] The Economist THIS newspaper has long advocated a carbon tax as the best way to deal with a warming climate. This month we asked Cambridge Econometrics, an economic-modelling firm, to assess the impact ofa carbon tax on the economy. To keep things simple and allow for gradual adjustment, we proposed that it should raise revenue s equal to 1% of GDP by 2020, and that other policies with similar objectives (fuel duty, subsidies for renewable energy, Britain ’s membership of the European emissions-trading scheme — the ETS — and so forth) would be abolished or cut back. The results are surprising. A frequent worry about carbon taxes is that they will hurt business and the economy. But in our simulation Britain ’s economic performance would improve. Despite raising an extra ￡ 11 billion revenue by 2015 and ￡ 18 billion by 2020, our carbon tax (￡ 31a tonne in 2015) would help economic performance, not hamper it. Output would be % higher by 2020 than under the current arrangements. Philip Summerton, of Cambridge Econometrics, explains that, with a general carbon tax replacing specific, expensive subsidies for renewable energy, more gas-fired power stations would be built. Since gas power is cheaper than wind power, for example, that would lower the cost of electricity. That, in turn, would boost production: manufacturing would grow by an extra