Henrik Nordborg is a physics professor at the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences, and program director for the university’s Renewable Energy and Environmental Technology. He began giving public lectures about the climate crisis some years ago when he felt his students deserved more honest information about the state of the world and the looming crisis. This led to him developing the Global Climate Compensation, a plan to tax fossil fuel companies and redistribute those funds to every nation around the world.

Henrik’s plan differs from other carbon tax proposals—he wants to tax fossil fuel companies at production, not from calculations of their emissions. He says this not only prevents companies’ capacity to skew the data, but actually involves no additional accounting—these companies know exactly how much they’re producing because that’s where their profits come from.

The redistribution factor is equally key. This fund would be redistributed around the world, per capita, and governments could then choose what to do with that money. It could provide a buffer for developing nations to begin their own energy transition. This is crucial in a world where Western nations are avoiding paying climate reparations—Loss and Damages payments—which Global South nations have tried to bring to the table at Cop conferences.

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© Rachel Donald