Pielke and Green on Obama’s Climate Policy
November 22nd, 2008Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
In today’s Rocky Mountain News Chris Green and I have an op-ed on Obama’s climate policy plans. It starts as follows:
With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States, debates over climate policy are going to get a much needed boost. The Obama plan for climate policy includes one very good idea – investment in new technologies and infrastructure – and one very bad one: cap-and-trade.
To understand why cap-and-trade is such a bad idea, we need only look to lessons from Europe’s experiences.
Please read the whole thing here. We welcome your comments.
November 28th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Good for you, Roger. It’s nice to see you advocate a position, especially for carbon taxes over cap and trade (which is a politician’s/bureaucrat’s/rent-seeker’s dream). However, to avoid wasted expenditures/pork and to ensure political sustainability, I strongly prefer that any carbon tax revenue be rebated to citizens pro rata (like Jim Hansen): http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2008/06/27/top-demagogues-jim-hansen-florida-power-exxon-aei-margo-thoring-major-economists-george-will-prefer-rebated-carbon-taxes.aspx.