Please note: global climate change deniers need not participate here. This thread accepts the danger of global climate change and the role that additional human CO2 emmissions will have in increasing the risk of catestrophic changes. It further presumes for the sake of this discussion that the US will decide to take more meaningful action sometime over the next three to four years and that one of the two main options being floated, carbon tax or carbon cap and trade, will be implemented.
What would be the result of each system? How would various different segments of the power generating infrastructure be effected? How easily would they be able to pass the expenses on to consumers? Would utilities in good position to ramp up renewable use or due to have nuclear plants come on line profit? How quickly would each approach be expected to increase the use of renewables and/or better carbon sequestration technologies?
Any way you look at it, forcing a limit or charging a tax on the emissions you create will negatively affect the economy until we can develop clean energy that is as cheap and easy to produce as what we can make today.
Utilities with access to hydroelectric or nuclear power would be affected exactly as much as those still burning coal, because those taxes are passed on to the consumer. Consumers don’t get to choose their electric company, so there’s still no competition or incentive for dirty utilities to clean up, unless there is a federal limit on just how much of the tax can be passed on to consumers.
In the end. a carbon tax might help reduce emissions substantially, but only if it’s part of a larger program aimed at expanding the use of nuclear power and other alternative energy sources.
85 per cent of Americans believe global warming is happening
7 out of 10 Americans want the federal government to take more action on global warming
policies to combat global warming can command majority public support in the US, as long as they don’t hit people’s pockets too hard
Americans turn out to be suspicious of policies that use market forces to help bring down emissions, and are much more likely to support prescriptive regulations that tell companies exactly how they must achieve cuts.
given the probable costs, action seems more likely to win public support if it targets electricity generation rather than private vehicles. At the costs we quoted, the US public has a clear preference for action in the electricity sector rather than vehicle fuel. Even the least popular electricity policy - cap-and-trade - won more support at all three prices than the most popular vehicle fuel policy.
The enthusiasm for standards over both emissions taxes and cap-and-trade was perhaps the most striking result of the poll. In both the fuel and electricity sectors, standards were significantly more popular than the other two options. Differences between the emissions taxes and the cap-and-trade schemes were not statistically meaningful at any price.
I won’t quote the whole article due to copyright issues, but I have to say I found it fairly encouraging overall. It also underlines American’s love of their cars and their unwillingness to accept that are a large part of the problem.