More confusion from Hansen

Environment and Development Challenges: The Imperative of a Carbon Fee and Dividend says:

This chapter discusses the importance of a carbon fee and dividend in minimizing the impacts of climate change on humanity and nature. Before outlining the policies needed to produce a rapid phase-out of fossil fuel emissions, it enumerates the fundamental flaws of the Kyoto Protocol from the standpoint of climate science. One flaw is the “cap” mechanism, which purports to reduce carbon emissions at the rate required to stabilize climate but fails to provide universal price signals that would reward efforts to reduce emissions.

My bold. That's not a flaw from the standpoint of climate science. Its an economic flaw. Does nobody proof read this stuff? This is like the sprawling unpublishable ice melt paper: there's no-one who can say to Hansen No; just don't do it this way. Also, it would be nice if he could bear to call his "fee" system a carbon tax. The problem with doing that, though, is he then has no ideas to bring to the party; we're back to standard mainstream economics. As for It also explains how
such an approach may be implemented both nationally and internationally
I find it hard to believe he has anything very useful to say, but very easy to believe that he hasn't bothered read the literature.

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It has always amazed me how Hansen - the supposed intellectual leader of climate science and policy - writes like a 15 year old.

I agree; why doesn't he just get an economist to help him with the thing. Why does he insist on distributed dividends when revenue-neutral would do the trick and is more likely? (Socialism! Aieee! they will scream. Although handing it out to the poor would be fine with me.)
He seems to think that sales are all there is. I think we discussed venting CO2 from gas purification plants, and that stuff isn't sold, per se. Or am I wrong? Surely I'm wrong about something.

By Russell the Stout (not verified) on 11 Nov 2015 #permalink

Everyone knows you never call a tax a tax, unless you oppose it.