Guest Column: Cap and trade is not extreme

Published 12:15 am Saturday, February 8, 2020

Perhaps you still doubt whether climate change is really occurring. Or, perhaps you accept it is occurring, but think it is part of a “natural cycle” and not due to human activity. Or, you think scientists are divided on this issue.

If this describes your thinking, I respectfully ask that you read “Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming.” It was published in 2016 in the journal IOPscience, from the Institute of Physics.

When you read this study, it is very difficult to conclude anything other than climate change is occurring, that it is human caused, and that there is overwhelming scientific agreement on both points.

It is important for all of us to understand this. If there is doubt about the existence of climate change, or controversy over whether there is scientific agreement, it will reduce support for mitigation policies. Opponents to these policies are ever-ready to sow doubt about climate change, to slow or defeat implementation of strategies to solve the crisis. It is critical that we all seek credible information.

Maybe you accept climate change is occurring and even human caused, but don’t think the effects will be felt locally, here in Clatsop County, at least not in your lifetime, or that of your children. And that climate change won’t impact fisheries, forestry, agriculture, coastal infrastructure or the availability and cost of food.

If this describes your thinking, I urge you to look up news stories of the 2018 U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. Or read the report itself. Or search NASA and “the effects of climate change.” The U.S. Department of Defense also released a report in 2019 on the impact of climate change on the military and our national security.

Even though the current administration seems to be moving full bore in the opposite direction of addressing climate change, including denying it, at least one branch of government is paying close attention. The Pentagon thinks it is all too real, and the impacts are of significant and dangerous consequence.

So how are we to address all of this? As a society, how do we move forward to try to solve this crisis? Here in Oregon we have attempted to pass cap and trade (and invest) legislation, to put a cap on the emission of greenhouse gases, and sell permits to those industries that emit them. The proceeds would be used to invest in jobs and technologies to further reduce emissions. The effort to pass this legislation is ongoing.

This has been controversial, to say the least. At its breaking point in the 2019 legislative session, Republican senators left not only their jobs, but the state, in their refusal to address the problem. Cap and trade has been labeled as extreme, and too costly to individuals and to the economy.

I would argue that cap and trade is hardly extreme. It was first put to use in the United States in 1990 during the Bush administration. Cap and trade was instituted as a free-market solution to the problem of acid rain in the Northeastern states. Acid rain was the result primarily of sulphur and nitrogen pollution from coal-fired power plants.

At that time, environmental groups pushed for federal legislation to make power plants remove sulphur dioxide from their emissions. Those proposals were defeated. Instead, Republicans advocated for a free-market economic solution. This was instituted by amending the Clean Air Act to put a cap on the amount of pollution allowed, and made emitters pay a fee to buy permits to pollute; industry then had incentive to pollute less. And if they had permits left over, they could make money by selling them to other industries that were emitting over their allowance.

Critics say this just allows pollution to continue, that industry can just pay to pollute, and then pass the cost on to customers. But, in fact, it solved the acid rain problem. Industry found it was cheaper to reduce pollution and spend less to buy the permits. This same logic can be applied to greenhouse gas pollution. With economic incentive for industry to stop polluting, they will.

Besides, it should not be free for industry to pollute, when the cost of the pollution is borne by the rest of us in the form of reduced air quality and global warming.

A different strategy is to put a tax on greenhouse gas emissions, the so-called carbon tax. This is an idea being discussed in other states, as well as at the federal level by the Climate Solutions Caucus in Congress. Economists debate the relative merits of cap and trade versus a carbon tax, but they all agree that either strategy will reduce greenhouse gas emission. The bottom line is both strategies correct a market failure in which polluters are not having to pay for the damages they impose on society as a whole.

Concern for the cost of these policies is understandable and appropriate. But we also must consider the cost of inaction. There is a long list of undesirable impacts of climate change that will befall our economy, our food supply, our natural resources, our infrastructure and our health and well-being. If we are so shortsighted as to think we cannot afford the short-term costs of mitigation, we will do ourselves grave harm. The long term consequences of inaction are certain to be devastating.

We can solve this difficult problem. The climate crisis needs immediate attention, and it takes serious work by informed people. Every state in this nation, and every nation on this planet, must enact policy to stop the emission of greenhouse gases.