California Cap-and-Trade

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Nudges are the best kinds of policy interventions: minimum intrusion, maximum freedom of choice, maximum relative impact. But one area in which this idea comes up short is global warming. That solution would be making polluters pay.[read more]

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I've spent the last couple of weeks contemplating California's Monterey shale, which has been widely discussed recently as the country's next Bakken-style oil play, or even bigger. The Bakken shale has turned North Dakota into the second-biggest oil-producing state in the US, at the same time that development of the Eagle Ford shale has been shoring up Texas's claim to the number one spot.[read more]

Despite some modest steps forward, the UN Climate Change Conference in Doha was a reminder of the slow-paced nature of international negotiations. Progress is being made at the domestic level, however, and in many cases, the policy of choice is emissions trading.The European Union and Australia have announced plans to link their trading systems, and California and Quebec are working toward linking theirs.[read more]

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A little more than two weeks ago, while some 195 nations prepared to meet in Doha, Qatar, for the Eighteenth Conference of the Parties (COP-18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an ongoing effort to hammer out a durable scheme of effective international cooperation, the ninth largest economy in the...[read more]

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Cap-and-trade is strongly advocated as an ultimate solution to reducing U.S. carbon emissions. California led the country by passing the Global Warming Solution Act (AB32), which creates an instate carbon cap-and-trade program. AB32 enforcement begins next year by capping Power and Industrial sectors’ carbon emissions. To sustain operations each facility must reduce carbon emissions or purchase carbon allowances at auction.[read more]

The concept of a cap-and-trade CO2 throttling system is not new, or without widespread support.  However it has been slow to catch on with the Federal government, and slightly faster with state governments. The system is widely used in Europe, as are many global warming driven initiatives.There is no price for the right to pollute...[read more]

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The U.S. successfully developed one of the first cap-and-trade programs. Based in part on this success a similar process was incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol. How successful can the Kyoto Protocol cap-and-trade program actually reduce future world carbon emissions?[read more]

Think the U.S. could use tens of billions of dollars of brand new revenue to address its budget and debt challenges? And do you think newly re-elected President Obama might take a run at a bonafide climate strategy as part of his legacy by 2016? If California's Cap-and-Trade system succeeds, the response to both of those questions might actually be 'yes'.[read more]