Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade vs. Plan C

Since this is the most hotly debated climate change topic both globally and here in the United States, I decided to dive a bit deeper into the cap and trade vs. carbon tax debate. While I am a huge advocate of creating some sort of cap and trading scheme (cap and auction in particular), there are a lot of critics that point out the obvious problems with such a market. Before dissecting the multitude of cons, let me first speak briefly about the argument for cap and trade. The pros of the cap and trading scheme are numerous: creating a market, making carbon caps transparent, creating new jobs, etc. But the strongest claim is that it favors a long term solution as opposed to a short term fix politically, as opposed to a tax that has to be politically renewed with every new Administration. A carbon tax is not a long term promise, but only a promise for Now. Although there will be new laws and regulations that will have to keep controls on this scheme, the main point is that its not as easy to dissolve as lets say a carbon tax. The Clean Air Act worked well for the cap and trade scheme for Sulfur Dioxide (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1085), so as long as we dont make the same mistakes as the EU (granting mega allowances to big time pollutants), we can really make a difference in carbon emissions in this country.

In opposition are those who propose that a cap and scheme is costly and almost impossible to administer given the amount of players and regulations that are needed in order for the scheme to work.

One author from Yale360 proposes another answer to the carbon emission problem -- making renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels. Although this idea has a lot of loopholes, its still a good idea. We need to start thinking out of the box - maybe these two options are not the only answers to this global problem.