International monetary fund executives propose to increase cryptocurrency mining electricity prices by 85%

On August 16, according to Cointelegraph, Shafik Hebous, deputy director of the fiscal affairs department of the international monetary fund (IMF), and Nate Vernon-Lin, an economist in the climate policy department, said that the tax of 0.047 yuan per kilowatt-hour "will push the crypto mining industry to curb its emissions in line with global targets," and the tax will rise to $0.089 per kilowatt-hour if the impact of miners on local health is taken into account. Raising the tax will increase the average electricity price of crypto miners by 85%, increase global government revenue by $5.20 billion per year, and reduce emissions by 100 million tons per year, equivalent to Belgium's emissions.
They claim that a single bitcoin exchange consumes about three years' worth of electricity as an average Pakistani, while the artificial intelligence model ChatGPT requires ten times as much electricity as a Google search. The two also propose an energy usage tax of $0.032 per kilowatt-hour for artificial intelligence data centers, which rises to $0.052 if pollution costs are included because "these data centers tend to be located in places with more environmentally friendly electricity," international monetary fund officials said. The tax could generate $18 billion a year for the government.
Hebous and Vernon-Lin say targeted taxes could encourage crypto miners and artificial intelligence data centers to use more energy-efficient equipment, and could see crypto miners adopt less energy-intensive operations. However, they say there needs to be global coordination on taxes "because stringent measures taken in one place could encourage businesses to migrate to jurisdictions with lower standards."