The inevitable cap-and-trade on CO2 in America

FRONT PAGE: "House Passes Bill to Address Threat of Climate Change," By JOHN M. BRODER, New York Times, June 27, 2009.

Been waiting on this one since the 2001 economic security exercise I did with Cantor Fitzgerald atop World Trade Center One. Cap-and-trade had worked wonders with SOx and NOx in the early 1990s, and Cantor was selling the notion of similar markets for Asia--hence the game design. The consensus around the table (national security types, intell, executive branch officials, enviro groups, energy companies) was that some sort of restriction would inevitably come and that cap-and-trade would be the likely first attempt.

So here we go . . . . the first time either side of Congress passes a bill.

But I do agree with Gore that it was important to create some momentum on our side heading into the December treaty talks. China takes his all so seriously that, if we were to blow it off, it would come off like another huge global problem that we're purposefully ignoring. I did come away from my Shanghai experience with top Chinese academics convinced they saw global warming and CO2 control as a very big deal and that they were grateful that we now had a president who thought similarly. Doesn't mean China won't negotiate tooth-and-nail. Doesn't mean we won't have to cut them more slack than ourselves, given their still impoverished masses. Just means the conversation has begun for real.

Comments

[Mark Fragale]

Tom,

Feeling huge disagreement on this one. "Climate change" I can see and there is substantial evidence that it is normal in the billions of years the planet has been around. The climate does change. That man has a long term and substantial part in it, over time measured in more than decades, is hard to buy into.

Cleaning up the environment is a matter of letting the engineers and scientists build things that work without hampering them with excessive regulations. Run the discharged gas into the CEO's office and brew his or her coffee with the "cleaned" water. Bet then the water would be just fine for human consumption.

There I go again using the simple solution.

[Shawn in Melbourne]

We need to decouple progress in climate-adaptive technologies and the climate change hysteria around CO2.

[Hugh]

How exactly does a naturally occuring trace gas, CO2, that all plants use to initiate photosynthisis, at 385 parts per million, cause global warming? Doesn't that work out to 3.85 hundreths of one percent? I got those numbers from the Keeling Curve, commonly used by Al Gore.

[joe Michels]

Given the sizable dissent from scientists regarding AWG, did I say sizable? I think that is an understatement.The fact that the dems will not allow nuke to be built; the fact that our energy expense will have a significant impact on each American; the fact that the Earth has been cooling for the last 10 years disproving the AWG models that fuel the movement; will only hurt the dems and the Green movement in years to come.

[Shawn in Melbourne]

There are big firms in the services industry that have already become wedded to the CO2 / carbon tracking trend, creating entire consultancy groups and programs around it. If passed, it will mean additional and considerable revenue for these firms just as SOx has delivered and they don't have to believe in the scientific method and the pursuit of truth to benefit. Just as with the politicians in this case, follow the money, subsidies, etc. I know my company has started to throw out the terms carbon footprint/ tracking in some of its presentations and literature, going beyond the terms green technology--I wouldn't be suprised if Enterra Solutions also has considered this area of business; it makes absolute sense to do so if you are a business development manager.

Although I don't think it is wrong for these companies to pursue these opportunities, it would be sad and without principle if they are doing so without conducting their own comprehensive research for the benefit of their customers who may be facing dramatically increased costs to track CO2 when there is yet no solid scientific foundation underlying the need to do so.

[hof1991]

For some real science from scientists who actually study climate, try http://www.realclimate.org/. Yes, the science is complicated. It is not enough to point out that CO2 is natural. So is cyanide.

Don't fall for the one way hash argument, (actual science can be complicated, but that doesn't make simple explanations correct). More on that at http://tinyurl.com/dbc292.

[Rick Price]

I believe that Obama and DOE is in the process of approving many new nuclear power plants for the US. I heard the Sec of DOE on NPR state that just three weeks ago.