“Efforts to sell Republicans on the idea that [a CO2 price] is the most market-friendly approach to the emissions problem have failed miserably, and will continue to fail.”

– Justin Gillis, Forget the Carbon Tax for Now, New York Times, December 27, 2018.

Oh, how the free-market climate realists (science, economics, politics) feel vindicated. The mainstream press has (belatedly) announcing the Carbon Tax politically dead and a distraction for the whole climate debate.

The article by veteran New York Times writer Justin Gillis was one of (at least) three remarkable reality pieces inspired by the year-end UN climate conference (COP 24) in Katowice, Poland. The others were:

• Politico‘s Why Greens Are Turning Away from a Carbon Tax,”(December 9, 2018) and
• FT’s Trump Has Officially Ruined Climate Change Diplomacy for Everyone (December 12, 2018).

“Increasing the affordability of both U.S. and global energy is an important economic and humanitarian objective. Policy makers heeding the time-honored healer’s maxim, ‘First, do no harm,’ should reject policies to tax and regulate away mankind’s access to affordable energy.”

It is titled Free to Prosper: Energy and Environment: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 116th Congress. It is the work of the energy and environmental stalwarts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the organization long led by Fred L. Smith Jr. and now directed by Kent Lassman. And as always, it is reliable scholarship to inform both sides of the political aisle.

The energy White Paper is part of a broader book, Free to Prosper. The eight areas other than Energy and Environment are Regulatory Reform and Agency Oversight; Trade; Banking and Finance; Private and Public Lands; Technology and Telecommunications; Labor and Employment; Food, Drugs, and Consumer Freedom; and Transportation  That’s a lot of the federal matrix of public policy.…

Editor Note: In October 2017 (15 months ago), Joe Romm at ThinkProgress published a post, September [2017] sets alarming global temperature record and negates a favorite denier talking point.

In his words:

September 2017 smashed multiple climate records, alarming scientists and further negating a favorite talking point of climate science deniers…. It’s especially remarkable to see these records in the UAH satellite data….

“The signal of global warming has become so dominant that even the deniers’ own favorite cherry-picked datasets clearly now show it,” climatologist Michael Mann told ThinkProgress. For those who live in the world of real scientific analysis, rather than conservative talking points, satellite data, ground-based weather stations, sea-based buoys, and even weather balloons all reveal a steady long-term warming trend.

Mann added, “even the questionable UAH satellite record, which has historically underestimated the rate of global warming as a result of serial mathematical errors, can no longer obscure the anomalous warming of the planet.”…

“The story of the carbon tax’s fading appeal, even among groups that like it in principle, shows the difficulties of crafting a politically palatable solution to one of the world’s most urgent problems — including greenhouse gas levels that are on track to reach a record high this year. ‘This aversion to taxes in the U.S. is high and should not be underestimated,’ said Kalee Kreider, a former Gore adviser and longtime climate activist. ‘I have a lot of scars to show for that’.”

“‘You do have this irony, and that is the policy that is overwhelmingly endorsed by economists of the right, the center, and the left as the best way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is inverse with what is politically feasible,’ said Barry Rabe, a University of Michigan professor who has studied carbon taxes.”…