Earth Equity News

Why Cap-and-Trade Must Be the U.S. Policy Instrument of Choice. Commentary by Jonathan Lash, Mongabay.com, February 4, 2009. "The objective of federal climate legislation is to control emissions of greenhouse gases. This will require Congress to put a price on carbon using one of two options: by mandating a specific price on carbon, via a tax; or by setting a carbon emissions limit -- a cap -- and enabling businesses to trade allowances to discharge emissions. With a carbon tax, there is little evidence that we could get the price right to begin with, and even less to suggest that Congress would be willing to raise the tax regularly in order to keep emission levels falling. In addition, the actual quantity of reductions that could be achieved through a tax would be unknown in advance... The most effective way to control greenhouse gases is through a cap and trade mechanism that is designed to guarantee steady emissions reductions, encourage innovation, and ensure a measure of fairness to low income consumers and coal dependent regions. A blueprint [PDF, 4 pp] for such a mechanism was recently submitted to Congress by the US Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of 26 corporations and five environmental groups, including WRI." [Editor's note: Friends of the Earth President Brent Blackwelder summed up FoE's, CCC's and many of our allies' reaction to the U.S. CAP plan when he called it 'deeply flawed.']