ConocoPhillips Backs Carbon Dividends Proposal

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ConocoPhillips Co. is backing an effort to impose a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. The company is pledging $2 million over the next two years to Americans for Carbon Dividends, an advocacy group that pushes a carbon tax, starting at $40 and rising thereafter, as part of a plan developed by the Climate Leadership Council and its leaders, former Republican secretaries of State James Baker III and George Shultz.

ConocoPhillips is also joining the Climate Leadership Council. Exxon Mobil Corp. joined the effort in October, and BP and Royal Dutch Shell were already onboard.

Under the Baker-Shultz plan, all of the money brought in from the carbon tax would be distributed back to taxpayers as "dividends."