Instead, the candidates and most legislators prefer to talk about cap-and-trade schemes like the Kyoto protocol. These schemes have the great political advantage of hiding the costs from consumers and voters, but they cost more and accomplish less. The CBO calculates that the net benefits of a tax would be five times higher than for a cap-and-trade with inflexible targets. A more flexible cap-and-trade system wouldn’t be quite as bad a deal economically, but it would create all sorts of political temptations for doling out exemptions and subsidies to well-connected industries and companies.

This report is a reminder that climate change is not a simple moral issue (despite the sermons some Lab readers like to deliver on the evil of anyone who questions the need for drastic action immediately). I’ve supported a carbon tax (with the revenues to be rebated directly to consumers and workers by depositing the money in personal retirement accounts) and would like to see something done to deal with the risks of climate change. But the political reality is that the kinds of policies likely to enacted today are much inferior. They seem designed mainly to give politicians cover and pander to voters’ desire to feel virtuous. When your choices are inaction and a bad policy, what’s the moral course? Source

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