Thought Piece
The Abject Failure of Emissions Trading and Carbon Taxation
Both, a carbon tax and cap and trade, have yet to provide a single good example of working. In fact, the EU ETS has been an abject failure since its inception in 1997 and its implementation in 2009.
Also, CA’s trading scheme is just another hidden tax that gets rolled into CA’s general revenues or state subsidies; and, RGGI has just increased the cost of electricity without providing any real market signals, plus, it makes New England less competitive than other regions of the U.S.
As for a carbon tax, there are many questions. Here they are:
1. Who is the controlling political body?
2. Who writes the rules?
3. Who determines the price point?
4. What qualifies for the tax? What qualifies as “Renewables?”
5. Why Energy Efficiency totally ignored?
5. Where is the mechanism for measuring and verifying Carbon emissions?
6. Who collects the money?
7. Where does the money go after it is collected?Then, there is the political science in the noisy world of over 200 nations without a legitimate ruling body, just think the corruption of the United Nations and totalitarian rulers.
Finally, the actual implementation of technology of all things energy and its integration into the global environment is unsettled.
