Corporations Are Already Gaming the Carbon Cap-and-Trade System
By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
This article on the problems in Europe's carbon cap-and-trade system is instructive. Carbon prices have slumped because of decreased economic demand. Obama budget $643 billion in cap-and-trade revenues, but there is no assurance that the money will be coming in. And like progressive taxes, carbon revenues tend to be volatile and ultra-responsive to the economic cycle, which is to say they slump sharply just when government needs revenue for countercyclical spending programs. Note also that Europe's original system was poorly designed. There's a reason for that. It's hard to design a cap-and-trade system that will be fair and work. And potential market participants are going to work very hard to set terms and conditions which will allow them to game the system to maximum advantage. Corporations in this country are already busy doing this.
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Tags: trade | environment
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Reader Comments
The Need for "Cap & Tax" - Non-Existent
Obviously, the Obama administration views their "cap & tax" program as a revenue producer, not a climate saver. The administration knows that a "climate crisis" really does not exist. Anyone who reviews actual empirical data and is willing to listen to scientists who hold a skeptical view of a human-caused climate crisis, will come to conclusion that the "cap & tax" is nothing more than revenue potential for politicians.
Here are charts with empirical data (focus on first 8 charts) that belies the "climate crisis":
www.c3headlines.com/chartsimages.html
To read quotes from skeptical scientists, go here:
www.c3headlines.com/quotes-from-global-warming-critics-skeptics-sceptics.html
C3H Editor, www.c3headlines.com
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