Introducing Climate Protection, a new monthly column from Nick Maxwell
Washington State has begun something pretty huge for climate change — a “cap-and-invest” program. From 2023 on, most businesses that release more than 25,000 tons of global-warming air pollution each year have to buy an allowance for each ton they produce.
The tons are measured in terms of “carbon dioxide equivalents.” Those are the amounts of released carbon dioxide that would create the same global warming as whatever is being produced. For example, releasing 1 ton of methane (natural gas) will heat the planet over the next 100 years as much as 28 tons of carbon dioxide. So we say that 1 ton of methane counts as 25 tons of global-warming pollution.
This year, it is possible for Washington businesses to buy enough in allowances to continue releasing the same pollution as last year. Over the next 27 years, the total amount of allowances will be reduced 95%. This is kind of like how a group of people might subdue a wild animal. You start with a wide circle, allowing the animal to move around as much as it wants to. Then you gradually bring the circle in, reducing the animal’s movements more and more until they are fully restrained. In this case, once the process is over in 2050, the companies will be fully restrained to release no more than 5% of the pollution they are producing now.
Washington is the second state in the U.S. to run a pollution cap program. California has one too. Globally, there are over 70 cap-and-trade programs. The European Union has been running one for almost 20 years. The EU has continued its cap-and-trade program for decades because it appears to work.
Why are these incentives effective? The answer is that businesses know ways to reduce their global-warming pollution. Businesses know where they are heating with natural gas and driving trucks on gasoline. They know that heat pumps are available for office heating and hot water, and that insulation will provide additional savings.
Business people generally want to stop their pollution. But at the same time, there is this “that’s how we’ve always done it” thing. As long as releasing global-warming pollution into the air is how businesses have always done things, and as long as no one holds them responsible for that pollution, some businesses don’t want the distraction of investing in improvements. They have their core business to worry about and anyway, the costs of global-warming pollution are handled by other people: The folks whose towns burn down in California, the folks who get caught in flash flooding in Kentucky valleys, and everyone who breathes wildfire smoke in Washington state.
So while many businesses know how to reduce their global-warming pollution, they do not get around to it right away. Programs like Washington State’s cap-and-invest program hold businesses responsible for their pollution. It then becomes a no- brainer to take those pollution-reducing steps.
I am not a wild animal that needs to be subdued, frankly I find that language offensive and in reality the cost is just being past onto consumers that have no choice but to pay the increased cost, most of us can’t afford a new car or switch our homes energy source this does nothing but push people near the cliff over the edge.
Thank you for the helpful explanation of the cap and invest program Nick.
Informative Article! Cap and Invest Programs have been around for years and they have helped to reduce green house gases in many countries. These policies do raise prices, probably more nearly to the true cost to society of producing these products.
And gasoline prices in Washington are now higher than in California. In my memory, that is a first.
Residents need to spend a little time looking into claims. A good start is to read Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger and Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. This is cap and TAX. We live on one planet and “buying” allowances does nothing but make you poorer and dumber. China and India are not buying into this nonsense and they have the largest detrimental effect on our global ecology. Affordable energy should be the goal as it lifts more people out of poverty and facilitates the free market, which in turn facilitates invention and innovation. Invention of new technologies will have true benefit. There are efficient forms of clean and efficient energy that are being shelved and even lied about. Nuclear power is worth looking into.
To be continued on next post
Continued from last post
Don’t decide you know it’s bad before you personally look into it. Don’t decide solar and wind are efficient and “green” until you learn the simple laws of thermodynamics and energy transfer and storage. Look into the natural resources needed to create batteries and how and where they are obtained.
Please, please, please, educate yourselves outside the talking heads of media and politicians who benefit from extracting your hard earned money. Think these issues through and do not take them at face value. Come, let us reason together.
Very well stated Ms. Nelson. We need much more rational thought such as you put forth here to get the ACCC boondoggle under control that is currently crushing our economy and American exceptionalism.