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To combat climate change, nations should use cap and trade regulations rather than impose taxes on carbon emissions
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Title: Carbon tax could harm tourism Synopsis: There could be serious unintended negative outcomes of a carbon tax on Ireland’s tourism. Since this island nation is dependent on air travel to support tourism, “significant economic displacement effects” could occur when the carbon levy, to which the Government is committed, begins to take effect. A report, “Facing the Challenges of Climate Change: Failte Ireland’s Carbon Strategy”, (reference is provided) specifies implications of the tax on the tourism industry. This article illustrates how individual countries have unique challenges related to their home industries while shaping policies related to climate change. |
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Title: Cap-and-Trade Synopsis: This article discussed the advantage of cap-and-trade, cost-effectiveness and flexibility. |
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Title: Carbon tax beats cap-and-trade for curbing emissions Synopsis: This is an opinion article in a newspaper in the Federal capital of Canada. The author offers his support for Carbon tax over Cap-and-trade for an efficient energy policy. He mentions that a new provincial government was elected in British Columbia recently presumably based in part on their proposed Carbon tax policy. He goes on to criticize cap-and-trade based on the fact that it will produce “a wall street of emissions brokers” who will inevitably treat the environment as they did the economy: with dangerously high risks. Instead, the author promotes Carbon taxes as a simpler and more direct method to change human energy behavior. He argues that the rise in the cost of oil last summer dramatically changed consumer behavior towards fuel-efficient vehicles in Canada, and that according to this comparison Carbon taxes should encourage low emission alternatives in the present and better energy alternatives in the future. The “revenue-neutral” model described proposes that the money made through carbon taxes will be repaid through lowering income and savings taxes. While this argument is highly simplified in this article, it describes clearly a popular energy policy, which is well supported in Canada. |
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Title: Why cap and trade could backfire Source: The Christian Science Monitor Reading level: Beginner Synopsis: This article gives an interesting view on punitive means of achieving emission reduction. It claims, that if you charge somebody for doing something bad, it can in fact increase the amount of bad behavior. The article gives an analogy in different field to prove this claim. |
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Title: Summary: Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, and Energy Synopsis: This is a very easy to read article. It offers a quick insight into the basics of climate change and greenhouse gases. It argues that human activity is likely to increase greenhouse gas emissions and this in turn will lead to an increase in the average temperature around the globe. The article also offers some graphs and figures explaining the natural cycle of carbon, energy consumption etc. Even though it focuses mainly on the US, the explanations of processes are useful for understanding this resolution. |
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Title: Scandinavian carbon taxes nourish economic growth while cutting emissions Synopsis: Denmark and Sweden have both enjoyed a decade of economic growth while taxing carbon. The tax was politically feasible because shocks to oil prices in the 1970s were economically damaging and let to calls for energy independence. Despite their similarities, Denmark and Sweden have taken different paths; Denmark has focused on wind-power on Sweden on bio-fuels as alternative energy sources. Sweden has made concessions exempting heavy industry from the carbon tax, while Denmark has been fairly strict, causing carbon tax critics to claim that Denmark will lose energy heavy industries in the long run as a result of the tax. |
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Title: House Bill for a Carbon Tax to Cut Emissions Faces a Steep Climb Synopsis: The article discusses how carbon taxing could possible be more effective in tackling global warming, both from a political and economical point of view. |
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Title: Cap-and-trade rules Source: The Los Angles Times Reading level: Beginner Synopsis: Good affirmative article looking at California's cap and trade policy. A look at the advantages of a cap and trade policy. |
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Title: Cap and Trade 101 Synopsis: Very basic easy to read article. Defines basic terms and give a very basic overview of the cap and trade issue. |
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Title: Cap and Trade Essentials Synopsis: The article outlines cap and trade in a very straightforward and easy-to-understand way, and provides a useful empirical example (acid rain reduction initiatives begun in the 1980’s) to show the potential positive impact of such a cap and trade program. The text of the article below was taken from a PDF file online. Following the URL address listed above, to get to the original PDF, will make yhe article easier to read. A useful chart, showing the effectiveness of cap and trade acid rain programs is also included in the original PDF…. |
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Title: Debating Cap-and-________(Fill in the Blank) Synopsis: The article describes, in the most simple ways, the various concepts of cap and trade and how they’ve been perceived. Cap and auction reflects hope that allowances will be auctioned off rather than given away free to industries. Cap and trade, giving initial permits to polluters, is the industry favorite but has been said to unfairly line pockets of some companies. Cap and dividend, suggests returning any dollars gained from an auction back to the people. |
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Title: What is the Economics of Climate Change? by Nicholas Stern Synopsis: This article begins with a very clear history of the science behind the theory that human activity is causing global warming, supported by statistics and graphs. It also mentions the international approach to dealing with climate change. The author then moves towards the subject of the economics of climate change. It talks about the social, economic and political incentives to foster international agreements, and explores the complexity of such a notion. It then talks about the various possible approaches including taxes, and regulation. The ideas of adaptation, mitigation, and the uncertainty that causes cooperation to be so difficult are explored. It suggests that the best actions to take are collaborative international actions, and that this must be supported by strong and convincing scientific evidence to diminish the factor of uncertainty. |
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Title: Every Citizen a Carbon Trader? By Matt Prescott and Matthew Taylor. Synopsis: This article poses an interesting way to look at the cap and trade idea for carbon emissions. While citing that 40% of carbon emissions come from personal energy consumption, the article outlines the idea of a cap and trade carbon emission system for ordinary citizens. While acknowledging the difficulties in implementing such a system (the difficulty in passing such a measure through the US Congress, for example), the authors suggest ways in which local communities could pick up on the idea and spread it at a grassroots level. |
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Title: Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade Source: Carbon Tax Center Reading Level: Beginner Synopsis: The Carbon Tax Center has published a section on their website clearly stating their six main reasons to support carbon tax over cap-and-trade. The arguments include: (1) how a carbon tax will lead to predictable energy prices and why cap-and-trade will make prices volatile and discourage investment, (2) a tax is a quick, straight forward policy that can be implemented more quickly and take effect much sooner than cap-and-trade, (3) carbon taxes are simpler to understand and the complexity of cap-and-trade will make competing interests more difficult to balance, (4) negotiations required to implement cap-and-trade agreements allow for too much self interest, and that individuals will push negotiations in a direction that will benefit them personally, financial, and/or politically, (5) cap-and-trade does not necessarily always include all energy sectors, whereas carbon tax will cover them all, and (6) a carbon trade structure will produce a more equitable result. This article does not go into complex argument, or analyze both sides of the argument, but it does give great insight as to the interests of the actors who are in support of carbon trade, and provides many other helpful resources. |
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Title: Face Off: Cap & Trade: The Cure for Climate Change Pessimists Synopsis: There are many climate change “pessimists” who initially denied climate change, and now argue that it’s unstoppable. Cap-and-trade systems make put the private sector to work on creative new technologies for addressing climate change. While it is true that developing nations may pose a challenge to climate control, the technological innovations of developed countries can be exported for use abroad. |
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Title: Eight Arguments Against Carbon Tax [In Canada] Synopsis: This is a case study on the carbon tax plan presented by the Liberal party of Canada in the electoral race of 2008. They lost the election, and are now the official opposition. There was much discussion during the electoral campaign around the “revenue neutral” carbon tax plan of the Liberal party. This author gives eight reasons why he disagreed with this plan including an anticipation of the economic downturn of the United States. He also discusses the futility of this kind of action without action from developing nations such as China and India, and many case specific issues for its effects on the Canadian public. |
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Title: Cap-and-trade advocates press on after budget battle Synopsis: Good back and forth between house democrats and republicans on cap and trade bills. Good evidence on both sides of the issue. |
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Title: Global Warming May Dry Up Africa’s Rivers, Study Suggests Synopsis: This article is useful for any team wishing to show the harms of global warming. Not only does it show a significant and irrevocable environmental harm, but it also extends the impact to increased strife and war in the region. This could be a very effective piece of evidence for teams wishing to build a disadvantage scenario in a policy debate. |
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Title: A Carbon Tax Is Better Than Cap-And-Trade Synopsis: This is an article proposing taxing over cap-and-trade from an interesting point of view – political transparency. It argues, that in the USA is the proposed system only a hidden way to tax people (all consumers will pay for carbon permits) – and therefore it would be much fairer to openly tax carbon production. This article also gives estimated impacts of cap-and-trade on different parts of the society. |
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Title: Carbon Trading to Reduce Climate Change Synopsis: This article introduces some projects that countries, such as Japan, UK, Canada and USA have launched to create the carbon markets. |
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Title: Executive Summary: The European Union’s Emissions Trading System in Perspective Synopsis: This summary reviews a longer publication devoted to lessons learned from the performance of the EU’s Emissions Trading System. The years between 2005 and 2007 are viewed are a trial period for setting up the necessary infrastructure which is reviewed and accomplished. Six useful lessons are provided for those working toward adopting this system. However, the system is described as a work in progress with policy challenges still to be met. The report clearly supports the trading system. A longer PDF file is available. |
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Title: How Economists See The Environment Synopsis: This is an article about the basic clash of different approaches to environmental problems between economists and environmentalists. It concerns mainly with cap-and-trade systems – shows under which circumstances it is applicable and when it is not. It gives examples of successful use of such measures. The article as well shows some myths regarding economic solutions and deals with them. |
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Title: The Distributional Consequences of a Cap-and-Trade Program for C02 Emissions Synopsis: Cap-and-trade systems work by raising energy costs. Energy intensive items are a higher fraction of the budget of low-income families than high-income families. While this makes poor families particularly vulnerable to the costs of a cap-and-trade system, the full distributional impact of such a policy depends on how pollution permits are distributed and what is done with the revenue from the permits. For example, dividing up the revenue from the payments into equal, lump sum payments to every person would actually leave poor families better off. On the other hand, giving away permits for free would lead to profits for energy companies, and shareholders in those companies are generally high income. Assuming permits are not given away for free, there are tradeoffs between equity and efficiency in deciding what to do with permit revenue. |
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Title: The Case For Carbon Taxes: Simple Is Better Synopsis: Article argues that carbon “taxes” are simpler than cap-and-trade alternatives both because it uses bureaucratic systems that are generally already in place and because it is easier to understand on a broad level by the public. Where as the cost/benefit in a cap-and-trade system is uncertain, costs and revenues from a tax-based system are easier to track and predict for the future. |
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Title: Beware of Cap and Trade Climate Bills. Synopsis: Lots of good economic links in this article. They even use the term slippery slope in the article. |
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Title: A carbon tax is the best, cheapest and most efficient way to combat cataclysmic climate change Source: Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2007 Reading level: Intermediate Synopsis: This text is divided in several parts, the first one explains the arguments in favour of imposing taxes on carbon emissions, the second is about giving an example of why the alternative method doesn’t work, and the last segment is a “real” image of the situation today and the consensus among economists that carbon tax is the best way to fight global warming. |
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Title: Emissions Cap-and-Trade Aids the Corrupt, Hurts the Little Guy Synopsis: The article discusses how and why cap and trade policies can actually come across as very damaging for America. It talks about putting the entire U.S. economy in a pickle by benefiting the wealthy and putting the middle to lower income group in a tougher position because they would end up paying more for food, energy, and almost everything else they buy. The cost will be passed on to citizens who will pay more taxes to operate new regulatory bureaucracies and more for goods as business pass the cost along to them. |
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Title: From A Theory To A Consensus on Emissions Synopsis: Cap-and-trade systems are more politically feasible than energy taxes. Politicians appreciate that permits may be distributed by politicians to favored constituents, and companies prefer cap-and-trade to burdensome regulations. The cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide incorporated into the Clean Air Act in 1990 has been a notable success, with near perfect compliance and a significant reduction in acid rain. However, carbon emissions may not be analogous to sulfur dioxide emissions, particularly because carbon emissions are far more prevalent. |
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Title: Carbon Market Infrastructure Synopsis: APX is a leading infrastructure provider for environmental markets which means they organize how to actually track and monitor the commodity for trading purposes. These systems for carbon monitoring include CRT’s (carbon reduction tons), Emission Reduction Units (ERU), Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and others which are explained. Three systems of the infrastructure are explained and their role in the ability to trade and deal with this commodity. First, the Gold Standard Registry is discussed which explains how carbon is tracked enabling eventual trading of credits. Second, the Climate Action Reserve monitors and records greenhouse gas offsets. Third, the Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) Registry is explained which allows for volunteer companies to illustrate their climate change outcomes. The infrastructure operation explanation presents the specifics of how carbon is actually traced, traded, and monitored for impacts on the environment. |
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Title: Carbon markets create a muddle Synopsis: The Financial Times concisely explains the rationale behind government intervention in matters of climate change. The article furthermore criticizes the measures taken by various governments; It is not only too easy for companies to get away easily, but also may disrupt the economy when prizes are inappropriately set. Finally, it discusses taxes as an alternative to Cap and Trade. |
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Title: Six principles of Political Realism Synopsis: Morgenthau explains how the nature of politics between states are based on certain human characteristics, driving states to view the world in terms of objective power. As there is no way to overcome these difficulties according to Morgenthau, cooperation between states is extremely fragile. |
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Title: Experts say cap and trade not enough Synopsis: Short, but jargon packed article that argues for cap and trade but acknowledges that that alone will not be enough to significantly reduce carbon emissions. The article discusses what also needs to happen to reach emission goals. |
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Europe to Ask Wealthy Nations to Adopt Carbon Trading System Synopsis: This article discusses the European Commission’s efforts to lobby the United States to adopt a cap and trade approach to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions. The author provides a brief definition of what cap and trade means in relation to a carbon tax on emissions. The United States has been reluctant in the past to participate in global efforts to combat greenhouse emissions, but they are viewed as an essential part of addressing climate change and the lowering of emissions. The European Commission’s goal is to create a Trans-Atlantic partnership as international talks approach in December to find a successor agreement to the Kyoto Treaty. |
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Title: Is Cap and Trade Dead This Year Synopsis: The article shows that the biggest risks to a cap-and-trade program come not from Republican opposition in the US Congress, but from Democrats who are willing to sell out on climate change in order to make progress on issues like health care and the economic stimulus package. This article could be a good source for negative teams looking to show that, while an affirmative team could “fiat” a cap-and-trade program, ongoing support for such a system would be tepid at best, as other issues are seen as bigger priorities for American liberals. |
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Title: Cap and Trade Vs. Carbon Tax Synopsis: If we know that there is serious environmental risk from having emissions above a certain particular level, a cap-and-trade system could be preferable to a carbon tax. It may be difficult for policy makers to ensure that the tax they choose will guarantee emissions stay below the danger threshold. On the other hand, if a cap is set too low, economic growth may suffer. |
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Title: Op-Ed: Cap & Trade vs. Tax Synopsis: This article provides a simple overview of how the cap-and-trade and tax approaches to reducing carbon emissions. It also provides some comparison between the two approaches. The article also suggests that the best approach in the United States is the cap-and-trade system, using the European model as an example of its effectiveness. The author identifies some of the problems that would occur if the carbon tax approach was implemented. |
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Title: A Freakonomics Contest: The Coase Theorem Online Synopsis: The Coase Theorem says that no matter who is assigned property rights, as long as transaction costs are not too high, the efficient outcome will be achieved. This article explains the argument for the Coase Theorem, and why it may fail if there are transaction costs. |
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Title: Who Pays for Cap and Trade? Synopsis: This article argues that instead of polluters being taxed for causing damage to the environment, it will be end-consumers bearing the burden of the cap and trade system in the end. The effect will come as a result of higher costs being transmitted further on at the consumer level. This article also points out social inequities that would result from this system (effects on the poor and the rich), but also geographical inequities in the United States (regions relying of manufacturing being heavily taxed). The cap and trade system is heavily critiqued for the fact that taxes may be too high and for the issue that income may be unfairly distributed across the US. |
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Title: Obama's Carbon Cap and Trade Policy Is Costly for Consumers Synopsis: The article argues that the cap and trade scheme, if effective, will result in the cost of doing business being transferred to consumers. The article advocates further that the consumer cost is going to be increasingly higher as time passes (in the period 2008-2050). It also analyzes the impact on production, employment and living standards of the American citizens. |
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Title: Climate Trading: Climate Production via Markets Synopsis: The process of emissions trading through certificates (pioneered by the EU Trading Scheme) |
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Title: Climate Change: Key Stories 2009, The Carbon Crunch Synopsis: Discusses the factors which have influenced the decline of C02 emissions in Europe and Russia and speculation that use could continue to fall. However, China, India and other developing countries which produce over ½ of current C02 output will continue to increase their output. Economic factors do not encourage investment in carbon capture and storage technology. Cheap coal fired electricity will probably grow and in the meantime carbon emissions will rise without sequestering coal-fired power stations. Rich nations will not have incentives for investing in emission reduction projects. |
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Title: Tax-or-trade the question in climate change debate Synopsis: While the article gives some basic information on what cap and trade is, the author focuses on why a carbon tax would be better than cap and trade. Several arguments are give on the advantages of a carbon tax. |
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Title: Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade Synopsis: The article discusses America’s energy policies and the call for reform by American businesses as well as the American public. It discusses and compares both options – carbon taxing and the cap and trade system and provides arguments to the benefits and disadvantages of both approaches. Sharing the cap and trade strategy as a more market driven approach, it talks about how this allows companies to achieve their maximum allowed output at the lowest cost and offers greater environmental benefits as turning pollution into marketable assets will encourage technological and process innovation towards greener technology. |
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Title: Cap-and-Trade vs. Carbon Tax: Formulating an Effective Carbon Accounting System Synopsis: This article provides a comparison between two approaches for reducing carbon emissions: cap-and-trade and carbon tax. It identifies the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. The author also briefly mentions the option of cap-and-share, and other possible alternatives as well (very briefly). Regardless of the chosen approach, it is suggested that transparency is the key to successfully reducing carbon emissions. |
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Title: We Need a Global Carbon Tax Synopsis: The article discusses how the trade anarchy might reduce global emissions but there would be a lot of collateral damage internationally because of the sheer scale of the challenge and the state of the globalized economy. It discusses how if a price is not placed on carbon, global warming will persist. |
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Title: Learning from Europe: Designing Cap-and-Trade Programs that Work Synopsis: This article gives a brief overview of the European cap and trade scheme. It advocates that there are lessons to be learned from the European experience, ranging from greenhouse gases emission registries to auctioning emission allowances. The author then draws several conclusions that may be applicable to the case of the US in implementing a cap-and-trade scheme. |
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Title: On Carbon Dioxide, a Better Alternative Synopsis: An article from Keith Crane a senior economist and James Bartis a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, a non-profit research organization suggesting a tax on carbon dioxide in which all the proceeds collected by the government would be returned to Americans each year when they file income taxes. In contrast to current congressional proposals for cap and trade, a tax on carbon dioxide refunded directly to individuals would cut emissions while cushioning the impact on the pocketbooks of American families. |
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Title: Climate policy architectures for post-Kyoto world Synopsis: This is an article on global solutions of the climate change. It is focused on evaluation of current cap-and-trade policies and presentation of possible approaches in the future. The author is generally in favor of a global cap-and-trade system, but points out some controversies and problems with implementation. Various issues of international law are discussed as well. |
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Title: Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade Synopsis: This article discusses 6 arguments in favor of taxing carbon emissions. These arguments include the predictability of carbon prices; ease of implementation; effects on the general public; possibility of systems being subverted to the desires of special interest groups etc. Last, but not least, the article provides a short brief arguing that countries such as India and China should adopt a carbon tax system. |
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Title: Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction behind power politics Synopsis: In his classical piece, Alexander Wendt explains his view on the relation between states. As the natural state between states is one of anarchy, where states are in an eternal struggle for the maximising their power, the question whether states have a choice to busy themselves with things of secondary importance, like environment. Wendt concludes that states can create institutions that can transcend the natural state and create a system of mutual trust. |
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Title: ECON 101: Carbon Tax vs. Cap-and-Trade Synopsis: This article covers models an economic model of how one or two firms will respond to carbon taxes or cap and trade systems. The conclusion is that “both a carbon tax and carbon cap-and-trade will achieve the same level of increased efficiency by achieving the optimal abatement level at the minimum cost. The only difference is the distributional implications. The cost to the firm is lower for carbon cap-and-trade. The government receives tax revenue with a carbon tax.” |
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Title: Efficient Global Warming: Contradictions in Liberal Democratic Responses to Global Environmental Problems Synopsis: This article concerns mainly about the Kyoto protocol and its implementation in the liberal democratic countries. It tries to analyze, why the countries are so reluctant to cap their emissions while majority of the public is willing to do so. It gives theoretical background for capping the emissions in democracy and some of its controversies. |
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Title: Hormesis, hotspots and emissions trading Synopsis: This is a highly analytical article that requires basic knowledge of economics and uses mathematical models as its main tool. In the beginning, the author compares different methods of reducing pollution in general (such as trading quotas, technology standards, fixed caps, etc...) – focusing mainly on concerns about the cost of these measures. He then continues on the specifics of greenhouse gases, CFC, and the impacts on chosen methods. The article concludes with thoughts on fairness and risk assessment under varying methods of combating pollution. |
