Cap and trade is long dead in the United States, a victim of shifting political winds, fierce oil industry opposition and a weak economy.
Or is it?
Congress and a dozen Midwest and Western states abandoned plans for such programs during the past three years. That’s left California and nine Northeast states alone in their embrace of the scheme, which sets a ceiling on CO2 emissions and allows polluters to meet it by buying permits in auctions—and sends hundreds of millions of dollars into state coffers.
With many states in financial trouble—and with evidence building that cap and trade can bolster a new revenue stream and create jobs—some states are starting to take a second look.
In interviews with InsideClimate News, economists, analysts and state officials say that conversations on the topic are generally taking place quietly and under the radar in a few governors’ offices and in state legislatures, where both Democrats and Republicans dominate.
The catalyst was the release last fall of a 54-page economic analysis of the first mandatory carbon emissions trading scheme in America, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The report analyzed the $912 million in auction revenues that Northeast participants raked in from 2008 to 2011. It found that states netted $1.6 billion in economic benefits and created approximately 16,000 jobs by devoting proceeds to clean energy technologies, energy efficiency programs and other economic activities.
Since then, a handful of states, mostly in the Midwest but also in the deep South, have contacted RGGI officials about cap and trade, says Collin O’Mara, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. O’Mara chairs the board of directors for RGGI, Inc., the nonprofit corporation that helps states implement the initiative.
–
Because of that scrutiny, Paul Hibbard, vice president of the Analysis Group, the consulting firm behind the RGGI report, says he’s “very surprised” at the interest in the study. State representatives and industry groups across the RGGI region and in California—as well as U.S. Department of Energy officials and federal legislative staff—have frequently brought in Hibbard and colleagues to explain their findings.
Hibbard says the RGGI study is unique because it examines cap and trade strictly from an economic angle. It doesn’t consider environmental impacts or whether the program is crucial for curbing global warming pollution.
“We just looked at the [auction] money and the impact of those dollars. We found that there’s absolutely an economic return for collecting cap and trade revenues. And that’s true almost regardless of how you use them,” he says. That includes in states like New York, which used tens of millions in cap-and-trade money to plug budget gaps.
RGGI (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – a cap and trade agreement among northeastern states) has also produced changes in consumers’ overall expenditures on electricity. Although CO2 allowances tend to increase electricity prices in the near term, there is also a lowering of prices over time because the states invested a substantial amount of the allowance proceeds on energy efficiency programs that reduce electricity consumption.6 After the early impacts of small electricity price
“We just looked at the [auction] money and the impact of those dollars. We found that there’s absolutely an economic return for collecting cap and trade revenues. And that’s true almost regardless of how you use them,” he says. That includes in states like New York, which used tens of millions in cap-and-trade money to plug budget gaps.
It is no wonder that states that are bankrupt are embracing this, another scheme to redistribute the wealth, such as the bankrupt State of Calif. When will these idiots ever learn that the private sector is who creates the jobs in our economy and not some corrupt bunch of bureaucrats?
Warmest want to control every aspect of your life: what you eat, what you drive, where you drive, what you believe, what you own, how many children you can have how much you can travel, how much money you have, what your kids are taught, how big your house is, the temperature of your house, how your house is heated, how far you live from your work, what kind of light bulbs and other appliances you have ……… Global warmers make Lenin’s Bolsheviks look like libertarians. In Soviet Russia, polar bears eat Bolsheviks’
Comrade jdouglashuahin, We are “Warmists”, not warmest.
Private sector job creators like Mitt Romney?
Those who howl about “wealth redistribution” didn’t have a problem when the money was flowing from the bottom to the top.
A well-regulated cap and trade program has so much promise. Why did conservatives jump ship from it a few years back?
Anyone with any sense should have not only “jump ship” but wondered why there was ever such a delusional notion to begin with for a few to make money trading something that has no value but makes them rich.
“After fluctuating in the past few years between 15 and 25 euros (19.5 and 32.5 dollars) per tonne of CO2, carbon crashed in 2011. Last week, it was changing hands at 6.5 euros (8.45 dollars) a tonne, the lowest on record.
http://phys.org/news/2011-12-european-carbon-annus-horribilis.html
“The price of New Zealand units (NZUs) has crashed from $22 in May to about $11 last week, stifling interest in developing carbon offsetting initiatives here, according to carbon market participants.
The price crash has been so steep that by one calculation, if the price trend continued for another 100 days, the value of NZU credits would be zero.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/6081834/Carbon-credits-pricing-crashes-and-burns
Meanwhile people with who know science, engineering and have inspiration do these things so that those that worry about carbon trading can fill up their ride, take a long flight, heat their homes and provide lights and keep the beer cool in the fridge.
HOUSTON, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) — Shell Oil Company said Thursday it has started producing oil from a well 9,627 feet (2934 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, the deepest underwater well in the world.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-11/18/c_131255112.htm
“The Tiber well is about 250 miles southeast of Houston in U.S. waters. At 35,055 feet, it is as deep as Mount Everest is tall, not including more than 4,000 feet of water above it.”
Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/2009/09/03/20090903biz-gulfoil0903.html#ixzz1xqJ1R15z
A platform nearly 500 metres tall, without actually extending to the sky but stabilised well into the depths of the oceanic water – the Troll A Platform can be summarised as such. The marine monument, currently operating in the western part of the North Sea was not long ago acknowledged as the biggest oil rig by the Guinness Book of World Records (1996).
http://www.marineinsight.com/marine/marine-news/headline/the-troll-a-platform-one-of-the-biggest-floating-structures-in-the-world/#ixzz20VMP8yzz
Those that can do, those that can’t want to tax carbon.
Riddle me this.
If cap and trade apparently does not work, then what is an effective mechanism for ensuring that CO2 emissions follow ramp down rates recommended?
If the answer is “nothing” then go back and figure something out. Your ridiculous counter arguments against the science in the past indicate you hate all the solutions, thus attack the science instead.
Now, I understand it is tough since you have some attachment to the notion that nothing can be done, but rational adults face up to problems rather than shoot the messengers (scientists).
otter17 Says: “If the answer is “nothing” then go back and figure something out. Your ridiculous counter arguments against the science in the past indicate you hate all the solutions, thus attack the science instead.”
Please otter17, show me the link where I can find that experiments have shown that the amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere has one thing to do with the earth’s climate and do not mention the ingenious 1859 experiment that Tyndall devised to show that both CO2 AND H2O vapor absorb infra-red radiation. Keep in mind this: the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is 4/100th of 1%. Manmade carbon (5%) is therefore 2/1000th of 1%.
You can look at this link and imagine at what clouds might have to do with the climate.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/05/01/science/earth/0501-clouds.html
This is what actual scientist are doing regarding this issue:
“Svensmark: Evidence continues to build that the Sun drives climate, not CO2″
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/svensmark-evidence-continues-to-build.html
More sunspots, less cosmic rays, warmer earth. During the last 50 years or so, there have been record numbers of sunspots, low cosmic ray fluxes and somewhat higher temperatures. http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110824/full/news.2011.504.html
Dodging the question…
Otter17: I have a question for you. Provide me with the evidence of an experiment that has been conducted that proves that the amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere can be responsible for something as complex as the earth’s climate. If you find that you can’t answer this question, then I have every right to call you out on your “science” regarding anthropogenic global warming. When you become tired of looking because you will find none, you can go to this site and find links to research that real scientist have done that shows the truth about this scam.
“Rather than address the issue at hand, the science is attacked instead.” and isn’t that the way science is suppose to work?
CO2 Greenhouse Theory Topples Under Technical Scrutiny And Practical Testing
http://robertkernodle.hubpages.com/hub/CO2-Greenhouse-Theory-Topples-Under-Technical-Scrutiny-And-Practical-Testing
STILL dodging the original question…
Considering a vast majority of scientific organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences concludes that warming can indeed be driven by CO2, you really ought to come up with a potential plan for CO2 reduction that you agree with politically.
Lay people ask questions about the science, but it is intellectually dishonest to attack it without making any reasonable contribution to the scientific journals in order to correct any perceived errors.
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Even Pravda can see that this whole scheme is what it is, a scam.
“That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that’s a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.”
“Even the Soviets never created such idiocy. The great famine of the late 1920s was caused by quite the opposite, as the Soviets collectivized farms to force peasants off of their land and into the big new factories. Of course this had disastrous results. So one must ask, are the powers that be in Washington and London degenerates or satanically evil? Where is the opposition? Where are the Republicans in America and Tories in England?”
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-10-2009/109977-self_immolation-0/
It never fails that those that vehemently deny the science have some issue with the politics surrounding solutions.
Cap and trade starts off slow, so the changes that it brings will also be slow and easy to monitor. Cap and trade has worked in the past with CFCs, and the ozone layer is better for it. Why the alarmist talk of economic doom?
Cap and trade was originally a conservative idea in the USA. If that isn’t viable, then what solution works for you.
If you find that you can’t answer this question, then we have every right to call you out on your science denial.
UN-backed carbon offsets hit fresh record low
Wed Jul 18, 2012 6:50am GMT
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6E8II21V20120718
It would make absolutely no sense for the U.S. to become involved in what has proved to be a failed program where ever it has been tried.
What would work better?
It is a waste of energy debating anything related to climate change with a denier. They are NEVER going to change their mind.
Save your energy for those who are unconvinced but are still open minded enough to listen to credible arguments.
jdouglashuahin is not open to any facts that do not fit into his ideology.
fortunately the persuadables are finally getting it this year. They will not go back.
denialists will go to their graves insisting its getting cooler.
For the Nth time, Cap and Trade was originally a REPUBLICAN idea.
Got it? Good.