2008 will be the year America debates climate change policy, hopefully without descending completely into election-year inanity. 2009 will be the year we get a policy. For an issue of this magnitude, that’s a fairly short time frame, so every turn of events counts.
Today Barack Obama has gone on record with his own approach. By my reckoning he got almost everything right, but there’s one huge missing piece. He is right on:
• setting a serious target: an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 is the minimum we should aim for, if we take the scientific evidence seriously. We can get there only by starting soon and staying on course.
• capping carbon emissions: a cap is necessary if we are going to try to live within ecological limits, and it is far preferable to a carbon tax, as I’ve argued earlier on this august site.
• auctioning the permits: as Obama said, letting the cows out of the Barnes, “Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does…”
• rejecting offsets: he doesn’t even mention them.
• investing in a non-carbon future: we need basic R&D, infrastructure and other initiatives to turn our economy around.
The only element that’s lacking is a commitment to rebating most of the auction revenues back to the people on a per capita basis. Economically, this is necessary to protect real incomes and avoid a dangerous contraction of consumer demand. (The higher energy prices we will be paying under any reasonable cap will be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.) Politically, it is necessary to win support for tough limits on carbon emissions. After all, if it is true that we own the sky, we should share in the income it generates. Finally, a per capita rebate would constitute the most progressive income redistribution program since the New Deal, a big consideration at a time of spiraling inequality.
So how do you finance those green investments if you give the money back? Answer: by ending pork barrel subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel mafias ($24B give or take a few) and rethinking national security, for starters. NB: if rebating the auction proceeds on an equal share basis is highly progressive, withholding a big chunk of it for other uses is highly regressive. Finance public investment out of taxes.