'The Rise and Fall of Cap-and-Trade'

Jeff Frankel:

The Rise and Fall of Cap-and-Trade: ...the political tide on both sides of the Atlantic has been against “cap and trade” over the last five years. In the United States, the highly successful trading system for allowances in emissions of SO2 (sulfur dioxide) has all but died since 2012.  In the European Union as well, the Emissions Trading System was in effect overtaken by other kinds of regulation in 2013.

Cap-and-trade was originally considered a Republican idea.  Market-friendly regulation was pushed by those who thought of themselves as pro-market, rather than by those who thought of themselves as pro-regulation.  Most environmental organizations were opposed to the novel approach;  many of them thought it immoral for corporations to be able to pay for the right to pollute. The pioneering use of the cap-and-trade approach to phase out lead from gasoline in the 1980s was a policy of Ronald Reagan’s Administration.  Its successful use to reduce SO2 emissions from power plants in the 1990s was a policy of George H.W. Bush’s administration.  The proposal to use cap-and-trade to reduce SO2 and other emissions further was a policy of George W. Bush’s administration ten years ago under, first, the Clear Skies Act proposed in 2002 and then the Clean Air Interstate Rule of 2005. (See Schmalensee and Stavins, 2013, pp.103-113.) ... Senator John McCain, had sponsored US legislative proposals to use cap-and-trade to address emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. ...

Republican politicians have now forgotten that this approach was ever their policy.  To defeat the last major climate bill in 2009, they worked themselves into a frenzy of anti-regulation rhetoric.  ... The Republican rhetoric successfully stigmatized cap-and-trade.  Schmalensee and Stavins (p.113) sum it up: “It is ironic that conservatives chose to demonize their own market-based creation.”

This stance left in its place alternative approaches that are less market-friendly (Stavins, 2011)... The non-market alternatives, such as “command and control” regulation requiring that particular energy sources or particular technologies be used, are less efficient.    Nonetheless they are again the dominant regime.   ...

There is nothing inevitable or irreversible about the recent trend away from cap-and-trade.  ... Even in the US, where it began, there is still grounds for hope. ...