For $140 per tonne of fossil carbon we can retire the stuff either through biochar burial or olivine mineralization.

But this money has to be (the equivalent of) a tax. That much is needed now for every tonne of fossil carbon

Probably, this is all counting angels because what is the chance of getting a gas tax of several dollars? But if we did, it would produce a lot of revenue to be used in programs to reduce carbon emissions, which is why I would push a higher gas tax at every opportunity.

Could you in a following post explain why a cap and trade policy shouldn’t involve the transportation sector? I understand your point about it having much effect on gas prices, but it would bring in a lot of revenue to the cap and trade “tax”, which could be spent elsewhere.

Secondly, could you post what your “ideal” cap and trade bill would look like (your choice if you think it would pass or not), or put up some thoughts and open it up for discussion? If this already exists, sorry, I looked and couldn’t find it.

Brendan

Now, Joe and others have moved away from the carbon-regulation emphasis to an emphasis on eliminating coal w/o CCS from the energy mix. But a carbon tax tends to implicitly leave the status quo in place, only now taxing it.

So what’s called for is to use regulation and incentives to do away with so-called dirty coal and encourage renewable energy and high-efficiency vehicles.
This would accomplish the twin goals of reducing emissions and getting the oil monkey off our backs.

in many areas, the package of hybrid bikes, shorter trip distances, and better non-car amenities beats replacing the auto fleet hands down at cutting gas use, by price and speed.

It has to be sold to the electorate, because it is not at all logical nor intuitive. Americans understand taxes, the underhanded scheming of this makes it a very hard sell.

I agree that a cap-and-trade program is not the best way to change our oil consumption levels, especially in personal transportation. However this sentence and some of the rhetoric in this article makes it sound like a carbon TAX (different idea) would also be ineffective. This might have just been an error, or maybe I am missing a key flaw in a carbon tax, but it seems to me that one of the major problems with American vehicles are the SUV’s and light trucks that boast of 18-20 mpg (if they are lucky) and bring the overall average down. I would think that if there were a substantial carbon tax on the tonnage of CO2 involved in the building, selling, and operation of a given vehicle (take the H2 for example) that it would encourage people to avoid these sorts of gas guzzlers. Now you are adding a major cost ($1,000 a year, I don’t know) to the ownership of the vehicle AND bringing demand down which would theoretically have a small impact on the increasing price of oil.

A cap alone will not cure all ills, but it goes a long way towards solving the problem. Let’s look at the numbers.

MIT’s analysis of the Climate Security Act says that net crude oil imports would be 22% lower by 2015 under CSA than without. These savings rise to 31% by 2020, 41% by 2025, and 66% by 2030! (Savings decrease in the next years due to some modeling assumptions around other countries taking on caps, but are up to 62% again by 2050.) Sure, that’s technically not “solving the problem” entirely. However, solving two thirds of it isn’t all that bad in my book.

But that’s not all. As you rightly state, rising prices alone aren’t going to solve the transport issue: 97% of our vehicles run on oil. Changing that requires more than increasing the price, as your examples from Europe and many economic studies show. That’s where additional direct mandates like higher CAFE standards come in, much like as you suggest. It’s also where the cap can show its full potential. Depending on how many of the carbon allowances are auctioned (as opposed to given away for free), a cap will also generate large sums of money. Part of that could be used to jump-start our transition to a greener transportation sector that’s less dependent on fossil fuels. It’s tough to put a number on this. Yet it wouldn’t be too surprising if a combination of these measures could take care of the remaining third of the problem.

These arguments also show why the ad competition is a good idea. It’s tough to translate economic modeling results into an accessible language without sounding overly wonkish, let alone describing the potentials for these additional measures.

So, any idea for a memorable image?

[JR: CSA ultimately had a lot more in it than just a cap.]