Can someone explain to me the logic of the people who support this legislation? How is cap/trade or carbon credits supposed to help the environment? I really don't understand the logic that goes into these things.
People who support "green" politicians think they are sticking it to capitalism and corporations. Meanwhile the conservatives think that corporations are somehow being oppressed (probably the basis behind their reaction to Global Warming). But I fail to see how either are right.
Also, any stats on EPA doing anything at all for the environment?
Well, you see, the carbon cap and trade system is based around the sulfur dioxide(?) program that stopped acid rain, basically by the same person. The main problem is that there were a set number of emitters that were easy to monitor (mostly coal fired power plants) while with the carbon program there are literally millions.
The basic premise behind the legislation is that if CO2 causes global warming it may be a good idea to do something to rein in the emission of CO2. So you cap the total emissions and different industries get quotas (but they don't like to call them that because it implies rationing) and businesses who produce emissions below their quota get to trade (sell) them to businesses who find it cheaper to buy credits on the market instead of making their production process more efficient.
As time goes on they reduce the overall quotas (the cap) and it becomes more and more expensive for the businesses who have to buy credits on the market to operate and eventually, the proponents hope, they will be driven out of business by competitors who don't emit as much CO2.
Along with all this there is the ability of businesses who sequester CO2 through various means or who produce electricity (mostly) through carbon neutral ways like wind, water and solar to produce credits and sell them on the market. A lot of people (including myself) believe this is just a scheme to redistribute wealth from the industrialized nations to the undeveloped world since there is an emphasis on supporting projects undertaken in this part of the world by pretty much every advocate of this.
Basically the whole system is designed to put a price tag on the 'environmental damage' businesses cause instead of them being able to externalize it like in the old days when any old person could just dump CO2 into the atmosphere without an economic disincentive.
As to why some might support this while other would oppose it you would have to ask them.
I am going to out myself here, I am an enviromentalist. It seems many ancaps/agorist/etc.. are not. However, I do not agree that the means for environmentalism is via legislation. Cap/Trade Legislation just moves around the alleged pollution rather than reduces it. Solutions are best provided in the free market and property rights.
A lot of people (including myself) believe this is just a scheme to redistribute wealth from the industrialized nations to the undeveloped world since there is an emphasis on supporting projects undertaken in this part of the world by pretty much every advocate of this.
I wouldn't call it an "emphasis", so much as a small component. One of the mechanisms in the Kyoto Protocol allowed states to fund certainprojects in the developing world as an offset to their own carbon output. But this isn't a key component of most cap and trade systems, which tend to focus on domestic markets.
Cap and trade systems make good sense if you accept:
1. We need to reduce the output of a given pollutant; and,
2. It's difficult or impossible to internalize the costs of that pollutant using more traditional methods.
Cap and trade systems internalize the costs of pollution. They allow market forces to determine the most efficient way to reduce global emissions (i.e. where "global" means everyone covered by the system) to a given level. When you look at a cap and trade system, you have to contrast it with other forms of regulation, like mandating that certain technology be used in factories. Cap and trade lets businesses themselves decide if it would be more efficient to change their technology, or purchase credits from another business that has reduced their emissions, or change some other part of their business.
Yeah, I should have said emphasis by those who view the cap and trade program as a method to redistribute income which is a lot of them. They don't even hide their intentions anymore since it is a done deal in many places, now the goal is to tweak it to benefit the poor who can't afford to engage in high CO2 activities so don't use their quota.
I don't debate that the initial intention of the plan is as you say though.
Most "global warming" policy proposals are essentially corporate welfare, if you read them carefully.
I have my own blog at FSK's Guide to Reality. Let me know if you like it.
My admittedly incomplete take: http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/2008/06/cap-and-trade-vs-carbon-tax.html
http://libertarian-left.blogspot.com/
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