The two major policy approaches to cutting carbon emissions, cap-and-trade and carbon taxes, both work by putting a price on pollution. Carbon tax—simply, a tax on fossil fuels—is intended to motivate businesses to conserve energy and switch to cleaner energy sources in order to save money. Cap-and-trade schemes put a limit on how much pollution a company is allowed. Companies that exceed their limit must then buy "carbon credits" from greener companies to compensate. Though these efforts have met with some success, our bloggers ask: is pricing carbon enough to stimulate investment in clean energy technology? Check out the answers on The Energy Grid blog.
- Is pricing carbon enough? on The Energy Grid
- Let's bury the "silver bullet" metaphor on The Energy Grid
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