Chris Mooney is a freelance writer and the author of two books, 
Clinton, Obama, and McCain have a lot in common on climate, but also perhaps a lot less than you might think. So, see here for what I think a race between two of them might mean for global warming policy. An excerpt:
Clinton's and Obama's cap and trade plans would auction off 100 percent of the initial pollution permits, using the proceeds for needed causes like investing in clean energy technologies that will reduce carbon emissions. In contrast, the Liberman-Warner bill - closer to McCain's favored approach - would auction off only a small percentage of allowances initially. Major emitters would be granted many allowances to pollute for free at the outset. That's an idea that leaves some environmentalists tearing their hair out.McCain's approach is a good way to get needed support for the bill from industry. But giving away so many allowances not only massively subsidizes special interests, but ignores the principle that the polluter ought to pay for harming the environment.
In essence, then, we're looking at a classic conflict between idealism and political pragmatism - with the fate of the planet at stake. Moreover, it's not obvious which approach is more viable: pushing for a moderate Republican bill on global warming that can definitely pass Congress, or pushing for a more ambitious Democratic bill that assures stronger congressional opposition.
You can read the entire column here.
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Comments
I think McCain has won it here. For one, he will recieve much more support on his bill from the right- or the people who are in need of convincing.
Furthermore, I don't like the idea that you punish people for putting carbon up into the air. In short, it does not work. It is much easier and more productive to make it cheaper for companies and governments to go green.
Posted by: T. "Chimpy" Greer | February 7, 2008 6:51 PM
It's not "punishment" for me to pay the grocery store so that I can take a piece of bread for my exclusive use, yet it is punishment for a company to have to pay to use up a piece of the atmosphere's limited capacity to hold greenhouse gases?
Economists are always telling us that the best way to optimize efficiency in markets is to bring externalized costs into the market. You're not doing that if you give away pollution permits for free.
Posted by: Phoca | February 7, 2008 8:35 PM
Please excuse me for a bit of nitpicking concerning the phrase "with the fate of the planet at stake". Obviously, it's not. The only thing that's at stake is our survival as an organised, civilised species. As for the planet, I guess it would rather be better off if we ever reach the logical conclusion of the self-destruction path we've been following for quite a while. Not that it'd make me glad, mind you.
Posted by: Christophe Thill | February 8, 2008 7:47 AM
Save the Planet?
Posted by: Eric the Leaf | February 8, 2008 10:34 AM
The fact that does not seem to register in most industry-haters' brains is that a tax or penalty on a company is a tax on the consumers. Companies don't exist in a vacuum and neither do US companies in this global market. Bring China, India and other emitters into play and we would have a semblance of a start.
Posted by: RK | February 9, 2008 6:15 PM