Political Climate Changing, US Getting Greener
jan/072
It seems things are changing at last. US politicians are starting to acknowledge the costs of green house gas emissions. I’m not sure what caused the change, perhaps it was the documentary Inconvenient truth which became quite a hit.
Sadly the proposed solutions are not within Pigou Club guidelines. Most plans rely on cap-and-trade schemes that most economists are not really fond of.
Tomorrow’s edition of The Economist has an article about the change (in fact it is their cover theme): “some half-dozen bills on global warming are circulating in the Senate.”
The Economist has previously mentioned Pigou club and NoPigou Club, but didn’t pick sides. It seems they proposed their own solution in this edition, but the article is hidden in the non-free section of their website (hint: if you can access it please comment)
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10:31 popoldne on januar 25th, 2007
I couldn’t find any record of the Economist mentioning the Pigou or NoPigou clubs. They do state that they prefer a carbon tax but feel that the political climate of America makes a cap-and-trade system much more feasible.
“The measure of Mr Bush’s failure to tackle this issue seriously is his continued rejection of the only two clean and efficient solutions to climate change. One is a carbon tax, which this paper has long advocated. The second is a cap-and-trade system of the sort Europe introduced to meet the Kyoto targets…
A tax is unlikely because of America’s aversion to that three-letter word. Given that, it should go for a tough cap-and-trade system. In doing so, it can usefully learn from Europe’s experience. First, get good data. Europe failed to do so: companies were given too many permits, and emissions have therefore not fallen. Second, auction permits (which are, in effect, money) rather than giving them away free.”
The greening of America
Jan 25th 2007
10:49 popoldne on januar 25th, 2007
Thank you!
I knew that The Economist was critical of Kyoto, but I didn’t know they supported a carbon tax.
Pigou And NoPigou were mentioned in November:
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8150198