Spring Break
Alternatives needed to carbon cap-and-trade regulation
Ian Bezek
Issue date: 5/5/09 Section: Opinion
President Obama made a pledge to fight global warming, and he's followed through. Sadly, instead of offering a viable proposal, we've gotten a half-baked plan that would cause an economic calamity for America's poor.
While it appears that Americans, as a majority, favor action to fight global warming, we must ask if the cap-and-trade approach is the best. Cap-and-trade would limit carbon emissions by forcing producers to either cut their own emissions or buy credits from other cleaner companies to meet the regulations.
Sounds good, but it is expensive. Obama admitted that his plan was costly when he told the San Francisco Chronicle that, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Just how much of a burden would we face from skyrocketing prices?
An analysis from the global consulting firm CRA International laid out the effects of a similar though less powerful piece of legislation in 2007. CRA Vice President Anne. E. Smith presented the findings of the report in front of a U.S. Senate Committee and stated that the expected cost of a cap-and-trade system would be a roughly 60 percent increase in electricity prices by 2020.
By 2020, the plan would, according to Smith, cost the average household more than $1,000 a year.
For that much money, we get a lot of benefits, right? Wrong.
Environmentalist, professor and believer in human-caused global warming Bjorn Lomborg points out in his book "Cool It" that the benefits would be infinitesimal; at best, a plan that drastically limited carbon emissions in America could reduce the rate of global warming by roughly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit over the next century.
This isn't just his finding. The IPCC - a United Nations organization created to analyze global warming - admits this much as well.
A study of Obama's new legislation from a group tied to the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce found that the legislation would cause the loss of 3 million American jobs and cost the average American $2,100 per year. All this to prevent the Earth from heating two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit.
While it appears that Americans, as a majority, favor action to fight global warming, we must ask if the cap-and-trade approach is the best. Cap-and-trade would limit carbon emissions by forcing producers to either cut their own emissions or buy credits from other cleaner companies to meet the regulations.
Sounds good, but it is expensive. Obama admitted that his plan was costly when he told the San Francisco Chronicle that, "Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Just how much of a burden would we face from skyrocketing prices?
An analysis from the global consulting firm CRA International laid out the effects of a similar though less powerful piece of legislation in 2007. CRA Vice President Anne. E. Smith presented the findings of the report in front of a U.S. Senate Committee and stated that the expected cost of a cap-and-trade system would be a roughly 60 percent increase in electricity prices by 2020.
By 2020, the plan would, according to Smith, cost the average household more than $1,000 a year.
For that much money, we get a lot of benefits, right? Wrong.
Environmentalist, professor and believer in human-caused global warming Bjorn Lomborg points out in his book "Cool It" that the benefits would be infinitesimal; at best, a plan that drastically limited carbon emissions in America could reduce the rate of global warming by roughly two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit over the next century.
This isn't just his finding. The IPCC - a United Nations organization created to analyze global warming - admits this much as well.
A study of Obama's new legislation from a group tied to the U.S. Chamber Of Commerce found that the legislation would cause the loss of 3 million American jobs and cost the average American $2,100 per year. All this to prevent the Earth from heating two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit.
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