Cap and trade will not save the earth

June 26, 12:09 PMRight Side Politics ExaminerDan Spencer

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A focus group tells Ben Lieberman, the Heritage Foundation's Senior Policy Analyst for Energy and Environment, what they think about global warming and cap and trade. Lieberman points out some key misconceptions that might change their minds about this new energy tax.

Watch the video:

Lieberman recently addressed the Heartland Institute's Third International Conference on Climate Change where he discussed four questions that are helpful in analyzing proposals to dealing with climate change:

1. How much of a problem is man-made global warming? After all, Waxman-Markey or any other solution is a solution only to the extent that there's a problem in the first place.
2. If one assumes warming is a problem, how much of it will be solved by the policy under consideration? In other words, if we accept that the increasing trajectory of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations is causing net harm, how much of that harm will be alleviated, how much of that rising trajectory will be reduced by the policy measure in question? Are we eliminating 100 percent of the problem, or 25 percent, or maybe only a few percent? And consequently, how much will the earth's future temperature be reduced: a lot, a little, enough to even notice? These are especially important questions to ask of a unilateral measure like Waxman-Markey.
3. Whether this particular solution to global warming has been tried elsewhere, and how well it has worked. What is the real-world experience with this approach? Here there are valuable lessons from Europe, which did us the favor of moving much faster than the U.S. and has already implemented the cap-and-trade approach embodied in Waxman-Markey. And this real-world experience needs to be taken into account.
4. Whether there are better ways of addressing global warming and, for that matter, better priorities to address than global warming. Looking at all the challenges that present generations face and future generations will face, is this the best use of our resources?

Lieberman concludes cap and trade is not only the wrong approach for the economy but may also be the wrong approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. You can read Lieberman's analysis here.