Climate Infection
Regulation of exhaust gas should assist us to decrease,
By cutting down harmful emissions right now we need to police,
Presently the burning of our fossils holds no steady bounds,
And the climate is the shock absorber taking the incoming rounds,
Yet our atmosphere is what provides us oxygen to breath,
What is hurt we must defend because it gives us what we need,
If we stuff it full with cabons and with gas that holds in heat,
Then energy must faster flow and cause the weather to unseat,
Stronger storms, raised wind velocity and oceans steady rise,
Filling low lands and low cities with a watery disguise,
And the fields from which we take our food may suffer worse than we,
Sudden rain or lengthened drought may be the future that we see,
Regulations give us warning to prevent the misdirection,
So homes and lives will not be hurt by rising climate gas infection.

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I would agree: The sooner the better.

I would suggest that, rather than cap and trade, a carbon tax be used. Cap and trade has not shown to be very effective in the EU and addresses only industrial emitters. The carbon tax should be gradual and relentless to a level-perhaps doubling the cost of coal. The carbon tax should be across the board on all fossil fuel.

The revenue generated should not be kept by the taxing government but split between 150% rebates for sequestered CO2 and the remainder equally divided between all citizens.

Coal plants are now able to expand 20% of plant value with no cleanup at all. This is the wrong direction. If they had to pay credits to renewable sources for their carbon emissions, then sooner or later they would find that cleanup and IGCC makes sense and in the mean time we get more renewable energy sources.

Cervus,

I agree that a carbon tax is, by itself, highly regressive. I recommend, however, that the revenue collected be split between sequestration rebates and the citizenry. The sequestraton rebates should be capped at 50% of the revenue.

The tax is levied, not only on the individual (indirectly) but also on commerce in general. The commercial taxation would exceed the indirect individual tax. If the payments distributed to the citizenry are at least 50% of the revenue, the tax and rebate together become progressive rather than regressive.

It is important that the rebate, other than the sequestration rebates, be made per capita, not proportional to consumption and not to corporate entities.

The tax is inflationary, as is any sales or ad valorem taxation. The rebates are compensatory.

If you do not raise the price of fossil fuels you will not seriously reduce consumption. It is too high a risk to expect to adequately address global warming with technological innovation alone.

Carbon taxes are not regressive except for, perhaps, home heating; rich people use a great deal more energy (directly and indirectly) than poor people.  Isn't that just about the definition of wealth?

This nation could use a Civilian Insulation Corps.

R&D is only half of the puzzle; the other half is making the right things attractive to develop instead of creating perverse incentives.  Taxes on GHG's help shift the attraction away from problem fuels and processes towards ones which create no problems or even create benefits.

Andrey -

while you rightly point out that high taxes on all forms of energy in Europe (not just motor fuels) have not halted growth in aggregate consumption, it is also true that Western European economies require only about half as much energy per unit of GDP as the US and Canada do.

That would suggest that some variation of a carbon tax could substantially reduce CO2 emissions in North America. Not only would this sustain the innovation and adoption of energy-efficient technologies even if oil prices dip if and when OPEC decides it wants them to, it would also sharply reduce indirect costs such as military engagement in the Middle East and perhaps in the long term, insurance premiums for coastal and offshore property.

Cervus -

you rightly point out that a carbon tax would be regressive, especially since a lot of low earners are forced to accept relatively long commutes to work. However, you can compensate for this by relieving the income tax burden on this group. The bottom line is not any individual tax but rather the total marginal rate for an individual or family (sum of all taxes paid divided by gross income).

And yet global warming and climate change will very likely hit at the same time anyway. Still maybe it will cushion the horrors to come. A smidge.

Wintermane is sage here - we're just thinking of ways to postpone the inevitable by months or a few years. However, being proponents of living in un-interesting times, we seek a path to slow the rate of climate change.
Poor people can't go out and buy the latest in efficient family transportation. Renters can't do much to insulate their homes, or install windows or a new heating/cooling system. Workers can't autonomously change the buildings where they work, or the machines with which they work. Engineer-Poet has it right that we very much need a Civilian Insulation Corps to provide subsidized labor to reduce heating/cooling costs for poor homeowners.
In order to reduce our carbon footprint, governments could set very high standards for the existing infrastructure, and CONDEMN inefficient structures, machines and processes. Owners would then RE-LICENSE their property (or acquire new), only being allowed to choose between the highly efficient or the super highly efficient solution. I know this is dictatory; but our world security requires compulsory rational action.
The alternative, a carbon tax, only works when best-technology is the widely available RULE, not the limited distribution option. Next, how does a society elicit the correct action from executives and individuals - by way of a thousand cuts? Human nature will cause the populace to respond by inaction, grumbling, and counter-productive choices in the voting booth.
In a choice between upgrading our infrastruction either by fiat or by taxation, I'll take the fiat. It can be framed in terms of doing one's part for the good of us all, in the battle against storms, floods and desertification. A fiat works on a known and controllable schedule. A tax will always be just a tax. Its effect can only be theorized, not known.

FYI -

Here you go - this was from a U.S. House committee report in 2004, but I doubt the numbers have changed significantly since then:

http://www.house.gov/jec/press/2004/10-15-04.pdf

Thanks for the link Matthew.
Yes, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap. The rich pay a lot less in tax as a percentage of his income.
I vote for a carbon tax with rebates back to the poor, balance to (valid, not just political) alternative energy.

matthew; How can the millions working for $5.50/hr pay more taxes and feed their family? Until such time as they get $7+/hr they should pay NO income taxes and be refunded a set amount for carbon taxes (say on the first 5 to 10 gal/week or so). This way people on low wages and with smaller more effcient cars would pay a lot less carbon taxes. People with higher revenues + gas guzzlers would pay a lot more.

An alternative to cap and trade is cap and share. Cap carbon emissions and share the allocations. See

capandshare.org.