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Its easy to understand. Weve had eight years of across-the-board hostility to sustainability investments by Bush & Co., and before that eight years of promises with no follow-through by the Clinton crowd. Now green groups are dazzled by the prospect of hundreds of billions of new dollars for mass transit, energy efficiency, and other projects, courtesy of carbon auctions. Their websites overflow with starry visions of how all this money can be spent, reminding us of all the pent-up needs from decades of neglect.
This strategy is deeply mistaken, and it risks pushing serious action against climate change many more years into the future, a delay we earthlings can ill afford.
Granted, the mainstream organizations are fighting the good fight on several key points. They recognize the need for strong action to reduce carbon emissions as soon as possible. They know that a central piece of the policy package must be a system of carbon permits, without which no one would have the legal right to extract carbon fuels from the earth or import them into our economy. These permits would be capped, and the cap would be tightened over time. Finally, the green groups have lined up behind the necessity of auctioning off the permits, rather than giving them away. All of these are laudable positions.
It is at the next stage, what to do with the auction revenue, that they go seriously wrong. Consider, for instance, the Sierra Club. Their website describes the sort of programs auction revenues should fund:
Such programs include financial assistance to help low and moderate-income consumers and workers offset higher energy costs as well as programs that assist with adaptation efforts in communities vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Revenue generated from emissions allowances should also aid the expansion of renewable and efficient energy technologies that quickly, cleanly, cheaply, and safely reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming.
Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council website says,
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