Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Congressional resistance, the treaty was never submitted for ratifi cation.
Later, the Obama administration proposed cap-and-trade legislation in
2009. It passed the House of Representatives but failed in the Senate.
After his reelection to a second term, President Obama continued
to argue strongly for policies to slow global warming. Because his
economy-wide measures were making no progress, he warned that he
would push forward with regulatory proposals:
But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will.
I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can
take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our com-
munities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the tran-
sition to more sustainable sources of energy.
1
The actions to “reduce pollution,” by which is meant CO
2
and other
GHG emissions, would involve regulations on fuel effi ciency in new
cars, CO
2
emissions in new power plants, and possible regulations of
GHGs in existing power plants.
Given the importance of alternatives to price-raising policies, we
need to assess other approaches to climate-change policy. What are the
major alternatives to raising the prices of CO
2
emissions, through either
cap-and-trade plans or carbon taxes?
• Virtually all countries rely on regulations. These require improved
energy effi ciency for major energy-using capital such as automo-
biles, appliances, and buildings.
• Many countries have subsidies on “green” technologies. These
include fi scal incentives to lower the cost and increase the use of
renewable power such as wind or solar electricity generation, hy-
brid vehicles, and biofuels such as ethanol.
• Virtually all countries have some taxes on energy. Except for oil
producers, countries generally have high taxes on motor fuels.
• Virtually all countries have voluntary approaches. These are gen-
erally commitments by industry to reduce emissions. For exam-
ple, large oil companies have made commitments to reduce their
emissions by 10-20 percent.
