Join Debatepedia's Facebook group! | News: Next on Debate Digest: War on Drugs
See Debatepedia's resources for the Spring 2010 The People Speak Global Debates on climate change adaptation

From Debatepedia

Parent article

• Carbon Emissions: Cap-and-trade versus Carbon Tax (arguments)

Supporting evidence

Ugur Akinci, "Carbon Tax Versus Cap-and-Trade Approaches to Global Warming - Part 1", 2007 - "The attractiveness of the carbon tax is that it definitely associates a cost to the carbon content of all fuels. Polluting the environment, no matter its scale, is penalized from the get go. In the cap-and-trade system, on the other hand, many companies might get away with carbon emissions that are below the 'certified limits'."

• One of the main premises here is that all carbon emissions, regardless of the scale, should be treated equally as a societal "bad", and thus punished equally. "Pollution" in the form of carbon emissions, regardless of its scale, is harmful to the environment and a contribution to global warming, and subsequently is harmful to all humans and citizens (and thus their liberties). All scales of such pollution, therefore, should be treated and punished equally. A carbon tax sets a blanket punishment for all scales of carbon emissions on the principle that they are all bad. A cap-and-trade system only punishes pollution above certain "certified limits", leaving all emissions within that limit unpunished. This may violate what could be viewed as a sound principle to punish all forms of any social "bad" equally.