Carbon tax versus "cap and trading" schemes

Comments on ABC news report: “Top climate scientist hopes Copenhagen fails”, by Europe correspondent Emma Alberici for AM, 4/12/2009, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/04/2761602.htm?section=justin

This report includes the following:

"I think it's just as well that we not have a substantive treaty."

Professor Hansen argues that the process is so flawed because it relies on cap and trade emissions trading schemes, like the one proposed by the Australian Government.

Instead of allowing polluters to buy the right to continue polluting, he prefers a tax on the price of carbon at the mine or the port.

What the Australian government and many other international governments are doing or proposing to do is even worse than what Professor Hansen describes. Those governments allocate free permits for polluters, not just allowing them to buy permits.

The Australian government should take notice of Professor Hansen’s point.

A carbon tax approach and no free subsidies to polluters should be adopted.

There are many advantages of a tax approach than the cap and trading approach. One of them is it can avoid unnecessary bureaucracy and their inefficiency and mistakes.