Thursday, April 24, 2008

California needs $150/tonne carbon price to boost energy emission cuts

From the Department of Duh.
Good Grief. Folks who talk about how cheap this transition is going to be are either morons or duplicitous. If some silly-ass blogger** can figure out the number, the politicians and their consultants know what it is. Here's our post from Monday on San Francisco's 4.2 cent/tonne tax:
This is worse than useless. A review of the literature shows that a price of $100 to $200 per ton is required to change behavior. This is just a targeted fund raiser, gussied up in green. As such it could have the effect of reinforcing cynicism toward politician's venality.
(disclosure: I am not a cynic, I am jaded*)
Here's the story stub from Point Carbon:

California already has such ambitious renewable energy targets that it would take a carbon dioxide price of $150 per tonne to encourage investments that cut emissions beyond what existing policies require, according to consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics.

**I do have one advantage, I've been following this stuff since 1992 and have read something on the order of 100,000 pages of science, econ, tech and dreck.