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Environmental scientists have high hopes that the newly elected Congress will tackle rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and the global warming that it will bring.
An easy, effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would be to put a tax on the use of fossil fuels. This would also encourage the adoption of renewable sources of energy, like solar and wind power.
But, though our government could certainly use the revenue, Congress doesn’t like new taxes. Instead, they may tackle a widely-touted “cap-and-trade” program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Cap-and-trade programs are based in free-market economics. The government grants permits to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide, with the total adding up to the amount the nation as a whole chooses to emit. That is the “cap.”
Permits are distributed or sold to those who are responsible for carbon dioxide emissions, such as electric power plants. They can use them or, by instituting new practices and efficiencies, they can sell extra permits on an open market. That is the “trade.”
Cap-and-trade programs give credits to farmers and foresters who create new stores of carbon in forests and soils. And the nation can ratchet down its carbon dioxide emissions by legislating a lower total cap each year.
Cap-and-trade programs are not without problems. Recently, a rouge entrepreneur fertilized a patch of the Pacific Ocean with iron, in an attempt to increase its carbon uptake and create carbon credits. Who knows what other effects that had!
Personally, I favor a carbon tax. But even a cap-and-trade program would be better than our total lack of progress in dealing with climate change.
Photo, taken on January 29, 2012, courtesy of Emilian Robert Vicol via Flickr.