Natural resources are very unevenly distributed around the world and arbitrary manner. Even natural disasters and dangers of climate change affect everyone equally, which makes it more difficult to reduce agreements are reached. And a philosophical aimed at reducing suffering or, at the other end, a tradition centered on the basic rights of individuals, some as arbitrary, harmful and growing inequalities are unjustifiable continue. But what can you do?
 
From different philosophical perspectives three authors propose to introduce a tax or fee on those natural resources that some use more or have greater amount, and distribute the proceeds on a global scale to reduce the initial inequality and prevent the increase climate change. But this general idea can be justified not only differently, but can take many forms. For example, on what should fall this rate? ¿On the most polluting activities? ¿On fossil fuels? ¿About all natural resources of a country? the amount of a possible tax must also decide not alone, but if it's the same for everyone or higher for more polluting. And, of course, we must also discuss what to do with the proceeds: should be distributed to all citizens of the world, rich and poor alike, as a kind of unconditional basic income? Or we should first try to help those who are in a desperate situation? In addition, should the proceeds be distributed in cash, electronically, perhaps taking advantage of the expansion of mobile telephony? Or is it better to invest funds in public goods, environmental improvements, green technology, medical research, education and access to family planning?
 
Hillel Steiner, Thomas Pogge and Paula Casal discuss these and other issues, reaching firm conclusions. Global poverty and climate change are the two biggest challenges facing humanity today. What if both problems could be solved with a small tax?
 
The authors are members of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP)
 
"In this twenty-first century is the century of the great trial, when sharpened and intertwine the multiple crises that make a true civilizational crisis and we are beyond the limits of growth, the theoretical work of height with which Casal, Pogge Steiner and interrogating the dimensions of a true international justice deserves the utmost attention "(Jorge Riechmann, Autonomous University of Madrid)