The Oil Drum

That's a great point about the carbon taxes. Most proposals for "cap and trade" or other ways of getting CO2 down end up costing quite a bit more than even rather pessimistic estimates of the true damages per ton of CO2 like the Stern report's $85. Even that figure is only about 50 or 60 cents a gallon of gasoline. So if we added that much as a Global Warming Tax it would spur conservation in a way that balances costs and benefits. Then do the same thing for power plants, so that coal fired electricity would be a few cents a kWH more expensive than cleaner sources like natural gas. It's a much more "gentle" way of getting society into the spirit of moderating CO2 output. Unfortunately it doesn't give politicians as much power to grant favors as does cap-and-trade, which will have a million loopholes and grandfather clauses that reward lobbyists. So we're more likely to see that one even though it is a clumsy instrument compared to the carbon tax.