It would be better if the Copenhagen conference failed and we start again from scratch

Selected Version - Version 2 (Current Version) : 11 Dec 2009 | 11:19 | booji

<< Older version | Newer version >>

All versions

Key

  • Text coloured Greenhas been added snce the previous version
  • Text marked red and striked-throughhas been deleted

Changes from Version 1 to Version 2

On the point: Cap and Trade does not work.

The basis of any treaty is going to include cap and trade as a mechanism for reducing emissions. The EU is already using it and the system does not work. Governments give out too many credits so that their industries get an advantage, this means that the prices are very low. Moreover this market based system is very complicated and creates a profit motive at the heart of the system, looking for a profit has been shown time and again to not be the best way to deal with the environment.

That the prices are too low does not mean that the whole system is flawed, simply that higher prices are needed. A market based system is much less arbitary than Hansen's own proposal of carbon taxes at the mine. Having such taxes would be an invitation to corruption in many countries and would be just as difficult to implement, emissions still need to be measured and a price somehow fixed, better to leave that to the market than giving something else to blame on the politicians.

Yes, because... Cap and Trade does not work.

 

No, because...

The basis of any treaty is going to include cap and trade as a mechanism for reducing emissions. The EU is already using it and the system does not work. Governments give out too many credits so that their industries get an advantage, this means that the prices are very low. Moreover this market based system is very complicated and creates a profit motive at the heart of the system, looking for a profit has been shown time and again to not be the best way to deal with the environment.

 

That the prices are too low does not mean that the whole system is flawed, simply that higher prices are needed. A market based system is much less arbitary than Hansen's own proposal of carbon taxes at the mine. Having such taxes would be an invitation to corruption in many countries and would be just as difficult to implement, emissions still need to be measured and a price somehow fixed, better to leave that to the market than giving something else to blame on the politicians.