A Question of Balance

From A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies by William Nordhaus:

"Economics contains one fundamental inconvenient truth about climate-change policy: For any policy to be effective in slowing global warming, it must raise the market price of carbon, which will raise the prices of fossil fuels and the products of fossil fuels. Prices can be raised by limiting the number of carbon-emissions permits that are available (cap-and-trade) or by levying a tax (or some euphemism such as a “climate damage charge”) on carbon emissions. Economics teaches us that it is unrealistic to hope that major reductions in emissions can be achieved by hope, trust, responsible citizenship, environmental ethics, or guilt alone. The only way to have major and durable effects on such a large sector for millions of firms and billions of people and trillions of dollars of expenditure is to raise the price of carbon emissions."