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Oct 15 2009, 10:32 am by Derek Thompson

Climate Change Reform Will Be Tougher than Health Care

As health care's passage shifts into not-if-but-when gear, we can all look forward to the next wild rumpus on Capitol Hill: Climate change reform. The conventional wisdom seems to be that the Democrats' cap-and-trade bill will have to run, skip and jump through the same obstacle course as health care: Socialism rumors, liberal in-fighting, special interests teaming, fake deadlines and pressure to scale back ambitions. Democrats will probably feel like Bill Murray waking up to "I Got You, Babe" for the umpteenth time in Groundhog Day. Except instead of inching closer to winning the affections of that Andie Macdowell character, the Democratic protagonists will find the next iteration of reform will be a lot tougher.

David Roberts from Grist disagrees and offers seven reasons why liberals should be optimistic about climate change reform. His first four are: Demonstrated Republican support, momentum from health care's passage, public support and international pressure for a bill. The first two seem right. The last two seem wrong.

Public support. The public's support for a climate change bill is a lot like its support for health care bill. Broadly, the public supports reform. Narrowly, the public has doubts about the specific bills under consideration. Specifically, the public thinks taxes are awful and hurt the economy. And generally they have no idea what cap-and-trade is. This is not a recipe for optimism. This is a recipe for confusion, and in a vacuum of information, misleading statistics flourish.

International pressure. "International pressure is becoming intense," Roberts writes. How intense? So intense that China has ... um... announced a pledge, which is the international relations equivalent of thinking about thinking about something. I don't doubt that an American climate change bill could change the international landscape of climate change reform and encourage other countries to pursue their own environmental policies. But I don't think senators from Nebraska and Louisiana are thinking about Japan and China as much as their thinking about energy prices and business output.

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Comments (4)

Duder

A significant climate change bill is an impossibility. Health Care, at least, allows a politician to say, "You will be better of after this bill passes because you will get [insert benefits]." Climate change is nothing like that. Climate change involves immediate pain for unknown future advantages. Our political system doesn't seem to be able to work with that. Look at the deficit. It has been spiraling out of control for a decade under both parties, everybody admits it's bad, it's eventual effects are much less disputed than climate change's.... and yet still no politician's got the cojones to do something voters would find unpleasant, in order to fix it. How in the heck does anyone think Congress or the President would be willing to inflict hardship on the public for something even more nebulous?

coreilly (Replying to: Duder)

True enough but still... think of the stimulus. Now matter how bad things get they'll always be in a position to go, "it's bad now but if we hadn't passed the stimulus it be 10 times worse." Or that whole "save or create" line. How are we supposed to know they "saved or created" 20 million jobs? Well, when there are only 19 million employed then we can declare failure for sure.


With cap and trade they just need to pass something and then say it'll stop the temperature from getting 5 degrees hotter then it otherwise would. Hmmm, what if the temperature doesn't go up? Or, heaven forbid, goes down? Maybe they should say it'll keep it 5 degrees closer to where it is now.

In all seriousness cap and trade is nasty. I like it in principle but in practice it's just a way for the pols to give allowances and exceptions to favored constituencies. I realize the theory is that even if there are giveaways it's not a problem - you're really creating a ceiling for emissions. This assumes that you never create more credits - if the economy tanks how likely is it that congress will be able to resist that?

Duder (Replying to: coreilly)

I don't think we really disagree, generally. I would just point out that the stimulus is a different situation. A real climate change bill that actually limited emmissions as much as some believe is necessary would have real, obvious unpleasant effects on the individual. The only unpleasant effect to the stimulus is more debt, which people (generally) don't feel or care about. And while I certainly think some cap and trade bill might pass, I doubt it would count as what I would call a "significant" climate change bill. Because a real change in emmissions policy will necessarily affect the consumption of individual citizens. And Congress is too scared to do that. So yes I see it as quite likely that they will pass some cap and trade bill that ends up giving hand outs to favored constituencies and a hassle to disfavored ones which does nothing to actually curb emmissions and go therefore goes unfelt by the general citizenry.

djantonu

Mostly agreeing with all of the above, article and comments, but even more critical of any cap and trade. It's worse than a distraction because it won't only not work, it will be costly and erode public political appetite in actual solution. In other words, after being burned by cap and trade, public will be less inclined to support tax.

The Economist has an article about the growing disenchantment in UK over cap and trade (doesn't work, fraud). "Questioning the Invisible Hand"
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14649058&source=hptextfeature

The following analysis concludes that economists and academics stand behind carbon tax instead of cap and trade: http://news.thomasnet.com/IMT/archives/2009/03/carbon-tax-versus-cap-and-trade-system-debate-heats-up.html

December 2007 article from Scientific American, "Making Carbon Markets Work' actually, in the end, criticizes the idea of a market since authors suggest no actual one could be expected to function correctly, and thereby strengthens the argument for a carbon tax.

Strong position against cap and trade (social justice, efficiency, etc.)
http://www.risingtidenorthamerica.org/special/Publications/CT.pdf