Cap-and-Trade

price of carbon

Instead of charging polluters a fee for dumping their carbon dioxide into our shared atmosphere, we are all paying the cost of the consequences of attempting to store about 30 tons per year in our air.[read more]

South Korean carbon emissions

With roughly 18 months until launch, South Korea appears ready to create the world’s most ambitious cap and trade market, with the highest global price on carbon.[read more]

atmospheric CO2

Our goal to be avoided, 450 ppm, is now feeling a bit close for comfort, given we are already at 400 ppm and 300 ppm was only passed under the previous British monarch.[read more]

RGGI's new cap rules

RGGI’s new cap not only falls short of creating real price pressures due to its closeness to baseline emissions, its excessive compensatory measures, and its failure to deal with leakage, but also runs the risk of locking in emissions.[read more]

Bonn climate conference

The latest round of climate negotiations wound down with most delegates expressing guarded optimism that progress has been made toward laying the groundwork for an international agreement to be signed in 2015.[read more]

carbon revenue

Whether it is via the auction of allowances or the taxation of carbon emissions, climate policy is increasingly being seen as a source of revenue into the national treasury.[read more]

EU ETS/shutterstock

The uncomfortable reality is that no policies have been put in place anywhere in the world that have indicated an ability to accelerate rates of decarbonization to levels approaching 5 percent per year. This includes the EU ETS.[read more]

carbon tax/shutterstock

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]

clean energy policy/shutterstock

We need all three: Innovation, Deployment and a Price on Carbon. The right answer isn't one or two of these policy areas. Appropriate and comprehensive clean energy policy is a three-legged stool.[read more]

EU carbon market

The fact that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme has fallen short of expectations has much more to do with unrealistic expectations than it does with a surprising decision by the European parliament.[read more]

EU carbon market

Declaring the death of carbon markets and cap and trade policy over Europe’s struggles is a knee-jerk reaction which overlooks significant developments for carbon trading around the world.[read more]

possible ETS futures?

While backloading was never the complete solution to the problems faced by the ETS, it could have given it enough momentum to pave the way to a more robust and economically efficient climate policy framework.[read more]

EU carbon market

Yesterday, the European Union Parliament rejected a proposal to backload (or postpone) the auctioning of additional credits within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme.[read more]

paintings/Shutterstock.com

The debate over a tax to curb greenhouse gas emissions has been raging on for years with no solutions in sight. Economists and scientists alike are conducting studies as to how a tax on carbon will affect the country’s bottom line.[read more]

emissions trading/shutterstock

It is clear that the Parliament vote next week on the Commission proposal to backload the auctioning timeline in Phase III of the European Emissions Trading System is going to be very close.[read more]