Just finished shoveling my driveway (pictures are forthcoming ...) and reading Environmental Capital:
President Obama’s aggressive stance on climate policy is giving fresh legs to the global search for a climate accord, but policymakers are trying to make sure that Kyoto II reflects political, as well as scientific realities, in the NYT.
But the cap-and-trade part of the Obama budget is raising questions. Such as, would levying an extra tax on the economy now backfire in a big way? From Energy Outlook: “Better to delay the auctioning of permits for a year or two, or make it contingent on a threshold level of economic growth–with negligible incremental impact on the environment–than to wager the sustainability of tough climate policy on a premature start date.”
Megan McArdle wonders about the cap-and-trade math in the budget. Much is predicated on an economic recovery that will drive up the price of carbon permits, she notes, but if that recovery lags, so will projected cap-and-trade revenues.
