Why cap-and-trade won't work for CO2

Two graphics by courtesy of Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus's Breakthrough Institute and the World Resources Institute show the absurdity of applying the successful acid-rain cap-and-trade model to climate change:




Clearly, a cap-and-trade bill concerned only with CO2 from electricity generation is an exercise in futility.

Note that the second graphic represents the gases in terms of their "CO2 equivalence". For example, the greenhouse effects of methane and nitrous oxide are, respectively, 25 and 298 times the same weight of CO2. Their effects are much more immediate and shorter lasting than CO2.

environment, environmentalism