Which is a better tool against global warming? Carbon tax or cap and trade?

May 6, 8:56 AMSF Environmental Policy ExaminerThomas Fuller

Previous Next

4 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the SF Environmental Policy Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The chief of the alarmist scientists is James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute. It was he who stood in front of Congress in 1988 and flat out predicted that global warming would be a catastrophe.

So when he comes out so strongly against cap and trade, which President Obama has submitted as part of his energy plan, it's good to take a look. I am a skeptic about global warming catastrophe (not about global warming, not about greenhouse gases, just about catastrophe), and I support cap and trade, but neither Hansen's nor my positions on this issue are typical. Most global warming alarmists are for cap and trade, and believe me, most skeptics are against it (see the comments to my various articles on global warming). In fact, I actually believe that a cap and trade program should be accompanied by a small carbon tax--I think that it's important to put a price on carbon now, so it starts getting factored in to industrial decisions.

Here's Hansen in an email to the Australian Department of Climate Change: "...governments are retreating to feckless “cap-and-trade”, a minor tweak to business-as-usual.  Oil companies are so relieved to realize that they do not need to learn to be energy companies that they are decreasing their already trivial investments in renewable energy.  They are using the money to buy greenwash advertisements.  Perhaps if politicians and businesses paint each other green, it will not seem so bad when our forests burn.

Cap-and-trade is the temple of doom.  It would lock in disasters for our children and grandchildren.  Why do people continue to worship a disastrous approach?  Its fecklessness was proven by the Kyoto Protocol.  It took a decade to implement the treaty, as countries extracted concessions that weakened even mild goals.  Most countries that claim to have met their obligations actually increased their emissions.  Others found that even modest reductions of emissions were inconvenient, and thus they simply ignored their goals."

Short term, he's largely right. Cap and trade is susceptible to gaming, and everybody likes to play games. But cap and trade has worked longer term, on sulphur emissions, protecting fisheries, and the like. It just takes a while to get the kinks out of the system. But the cap is important. Declaring a goal for the total amount of emissions sends a clear signal to those who contemplate investment in green technology. Think of the Cap as the stick and the Trade as the carrot. But because it takes a while to get the kinks out of the system, I advocate a small tax on carbon--but one that will rise if cap and trade doesn't work.

Strange that people that far apart on the actual truth of the issue should not be that far apart on the appropriate policy mechanism to address it.  Or is it?

I will be interviewing Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It, later today and will be publishing the results (hopefully) this afternoon or this evening. The interview is in about an hour--if you're really quick, you can suggest some questions for Mr. Lomborg.