This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate

by Naomi Klein

Consider the following list, by no means complete: • A “low-rate” financial transaction tax—which would hit trades of stocks, derivatives, and other financial instruments—could bring in nearly $650 billion at the global level each year, according to a 2011 resolution of the European Parliament (and it would have the added bonus of slowing down financial speculation).49 • Closing tax havens would yield another windfall. The U.K.-based Tax Justice Network estimates that in 2010, the private financial wealth of individuals stowed unreported in tax havens around the globe was somewhere between $21 trillion and $32 trillion. If that money were brought into the light and its earnings taxed at a 30 percent rate, it would yield at least $190 billion in income tax revenue each year.50 • A 1 percent “billionaire’s tax,” floated by the U.N., could raise $46 billion annually.51 • Slashing the military budgets of each of the top ten military spenders by 25 percent could free up another $325 billion, using 2012 numbers reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (Granted, probably the toughest sell of all, particularly in the U.S.)52 • A $50 tax per metric ton of CO2 emitted in developed countries would raise an estimated $450 billion annually, while a more modest $25 carbon tax would still yield $250 billion per year, according to a 2011 report by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)...