Spoiled Children: The Line from Riyadh to Oregon

January 6, 2016 by Daniel Lazare Comments (1)

Dozens of armed ultra-right ranchers seize a federal wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon and proclaim it “a base place for patriots from all over the country.” On the other side of the globe, Saudi Arabia goes on a rampage, subjecting neighboring Yemen to nightly bombing raids and then executing a revered Shi’ite leader named Nimr al-Nimr, prompting a furious reaction in Iran and bringing the Persian Gulf to the brink of war.

Given the immense distance separating such events, there couldn’t possibly be a connection between them — could there?

Actually, there is, and it starts with the conservative complaint about the infantilizing effects of welfare. This is the old right-wing argument that instead of making people richer, “free stuff” (to use Jeb Bush’s phrase) in the form of food stamps and aid to single mothers encourages a culture of dependency that discourages thrift and hard work and ultimately deprives recipients of the tools they need to get ahead. Rather than raising them up, government aid turns them into spoiled children who demand more and more and throw ever more violent tantrums when they don’t get it.

As George Will once said about riots in the French banlieues:

Welfare states are, paradoxically, both enervating and energizing — and infantilizing. They are enervating because they foster dependency; they are energizing because they aggravate an aggressive sense of entitlement; they are infantilizing because it is infantile to will an end without willing the means to that end, and people who desire welfare states increasingly desire relief from the rigors necessary to finance them.

Because the welfare state undermines the labor ethic, in other words, it undermines society in general, leaving the poor angrier and more impoverished than ever.

These are fighting words as far as liberals are concerned. But instead of rejecting them out of hand, when not turn them around and apply them to the real welfare chiselers, the ones truly raking in the big bucks?

Take the ranchers currently occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. They claim a right to graze their cattle on federal lands free of charge and demand that the grasslands in question be “returned” to the states, even though the states never owned them in the first place. “It’s happening all across the United States,” explained protest leader Ammon Bundy. “We have the EPA taking properties away from American people … restricting whole industries, putting whole states and counties into economic depressions. We have a slew of other federal agencies that are doing the exact same thing and they’re doing it by controlling the land and the resources.”

But rather than removing such properties, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been renting them out for decades at well below the market rate — indeed, as much as 99.5 percent below according to a 1993 study. For the BLM as a whole, that amounts to an annual $11 billion giveaway, more than double what the feds provide via Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the main welfare program for the poor. And where approximately two million families benefit from TANF funds each month, just three thousand ranchers have managed to corral half of all BLM subsidies.

This is welfare on a truly gigantic scale, yet Bundy and his followers want even more. And unless the feds give it to them, they’re going to seize government facilities at gunpoint and take it themselves.

Even greater infantilism is on display in Saudi Arabia, where the royal family claims exclusive control of a quarter of the world’s proven oil reserves. Saudi oil deposits are so extensive and so close to the surface that extraction costs are only a fraction of those in the U.S. The upshot is an income stream amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in oil export, one that requires the House of Saud to do next to nothing in return.

By comparison, Ronald Reagan’s famous welfare queen, the one with “eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards [who] is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands,” was a piker.

But there is bad news for the kingdom’s seven thousand or so princes. After peaking at $114 in July 2014, oil prices have plunged to less than $35 a barrel, a sickening 70 percent swoon that has left Saudi finances in tatters.

How have the Saudis responded? Exactly as George Will says French welfare recipients would respond to a massive cut in benefits, i.e. by blowing stuff up and taking out their anger on the world at large.

In March, with oil down to $60 a barrel, the Saudis vented their fury on Yemen, launching air attacks that have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed historic urban centers such as Sana’a and Saada to rubble. “Yemen after five months looks like Syria after five years,” declared Peter Maurer, head of the International Red Cross, following a mid-summer visit. With oil prices dipping another 25 percent, the kingdom followed up with a ground invasion in late August. Despite raking in trillions over the years, it pleaded poverty at the Paris climate talks in early December, claiming it could not afford to comply with mandates to present a comprehensive carbon mitigation plan.

“We developing countries don’t have the capacity to do this every five years,” a member of the Saudi delegation reportedly complained. “We are too poor. We have too many other priorities. It’s unacceptable.”

Mega-welfare in the form of lottery-level petro checks has thus left the House of Saud poorer and less self-reliant. But the ultimate tantrum came on January 2 when the kingdom ushered in the new year by executing 47 prisoners, including Nimr al-Nimr, a fiery Shi’ite preacher who had vigorously denounced the royal family’s arch-Sunni bigotry but nonetheless urged his followers to rely on “the roar of the word” rather than violence. When angry Shi’ites responded by storming the Saudi embassy in Teheran, the kingdom upped the ante by severing diplomatic relations and leaning on other Arab gulf states to do the same.

As The New York Times put it, “the Saudi government seemed willing to endure the potentially high political costs of the killings in order to deliver a warning to would-be militants, political dissidents and others that any challenge to the royal family’s rule would not be tolerated.” The more difficult its financial position, the more obdurate Saudi Arabia grows, turning its back on a growing chorus of criticism both domestic and foreign.

How would Saudi Arabia have responded if oil prices were still bouncing along in the $100 range? It is hard to imagine that they would have done the same. Despite talk about the Saudis cutting prices in order to punish Russia, Iran, and U.S. shale producers, it appears that the royal family has gotten caught in a downdraft of its own making and can’t figure a way out. As prices have plunged, the atmosphere in Riyadh has thus grown bleaker and bleaker. “The Saudis seem to be sort of in a retaliatory mood,” one Saudi watcher said regarding setbacks in Syria. A $100 billion budget-deficit, observed Rutgers professor Toby Craig Jones, “may soon force the kingdom to slash spending on social welfare programs, subsidized water, gasoline and jobs – the very social contract that informally binds ruler and ruled in Saudi Arabia.” As such ties fray, the position of the Saudi ruling family will grow more precarious rather than less.

If welfare weakens society as people like George Will maintain, then the lesson of Saudi Arabia is that super out-of-control welfare destroys it all the more decisively. The upshot is greater and greater instability, which, in the Middle East, translates into stepped-up terrorism and war.

Which brings us to carbon taxes.

The purpose of a carbon tax is to unwind a bloated welfare system that serves the interests of the oil companies, auto companies, and petro-sheikdoms rather than the poor. By internalizing the cost of climate change, it encourages society to accept responsibility for the carbon it injects into the atmosphere — not the most beleaguered segments, but society as a whole, which, in an age of galloping economic polarization, is increasingly of, by, and for the wealthy.

Tantrums thrown by the super-rich are wreaking havoc across much of the world. Conservatives have thus gotten it only half-right. It’s not welfare to those below that is leading to infantilization du monde, but the far greater welfare payments to those on top.

British Columbia’s Carbon Tax: By the Numbers

December 17, 2015 by Charles Komanoff Comments (3)

British Columbia, Canada’s third-most populous province, began taxing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions from combustion of fossil fuels nearly seven and a half years ago, pursuant to the province’s Carbon Tax Act. The province-wide tax commenced on July 1, 2008 at a level of $10 (Canadian) per metric ton (“tonne”) of CO2 and increased by $5 per tonne in each of the next four years, reaching its current level, $30/tonne, in July 2012.

The point of the tax is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is therefore surprising that very little detailed quantitative analysis of the tax’s efficacy in reducing emissions has appeared to date. Answers haven’t been readily available to fundamental questions such as: Have British Columbia emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas actually fallen? If they have, by how much? How have the reductions in BC emissions stacked up against the rest of Canada, which does not tax carbon emissions (save for modest taxes in Alberta and Quebec)? How does the recent trajectory of British Columbia emissions compare to that prior to the onset of the tax? Which sectors have shown the biggest, or the smallest, declines?

The Carbon Tax Center searched for answers to these questions during 2015. Not finding definitive data, we set out to develop our own. The result is a new report, British Columbia’s Carbon Tax: By the Numbers, which available here. A spreadsheet with supporting data is available here.

BC’s carbon tax is both the most comprehensive and transparent carbon tax in the Western Hemisphere, if not the world. A recent assessment by two leading environmental economists stated that “British Columbia has given the world perhaps the closest example of an economist’s textbook prescription for the use of a carbon tax to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions.”

Moreover, the BC tax is gaining adherents. On the eve of the Paris climate summit, in November 2015, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley committed to a similar carbon tax. Alberta’s tax will begin in 2017 at $20 per metric ton and rise in 2018 to $30, matching the current level in British Columbia. Although Canada’s two most populous provinces, Ontario and Quebec, are moving toward carbon cap-and-trade systems, the new Trudeau administration in Ottawa could choose to fashion a national carbon tax from British Columbia’s, with the possibility of higher tax levels to evoke larger emission reductions.

Executive Summary and Key Findings

British Columbia introduced a carbon tax in 2008. Since then, per capita emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases covered by the tax have declined, continuing a downward trend that began in 2004. Averaged across the period with the tax (2008 through 2013; no data are available for 2014), province-wide per capita emissions from fossil fuel combustion covered by the tax were nearly 13 percent below the average in the pre-tax period under examination (2000-2007).

The 12.9% decrease in British Columbia’s per capita emissions in 2008-2013 compared to 2000-2007 was three-and-a-half times as pronounced as the 3.7% per capita decline for the rest of Canada. This suggests that the carbon tax caused emissions in the province to be appreciably less than they would have been, without the carbon tax.

To allow comparability, the above figures are per capita. They also exclude emissions from electricity production ― a minor emissions category for British Columbia, which draws most of its electricity from abundant (and zero-carbon) hydro-electricity, but a major emissions source for much of Canada. On a total emissions basis (not per capita), British Columbia emissions of CO2 and other GHGs covered by the carbon tax but excluding the electricity sector averaged 6.1% less in 2008-2013 than in 2000-2007. (The reduction was 6.7% when electricity emissions are counted.) The 6.1% contraction is roughly what would be expected from a small carbon tax such as British Columbia’s. (See sidebar on page 5.)

The carbon tax does not appear to have impeded overall economic activity in British Columbia. Although GDP in British Columbia grew more slowly during 2008-2013, the period with the carbon tax, than in 2000-2007, the same was true for the rest of Canada. From 2008 to 2013, GDP growth in British Columbia slightly outpaced growth in the rest of the country, with a compound annual average of 1.55% per year in British Columbia, vs. 1.48% outside of the province.

GHG emissions increased in British Columbia in 2012 and again in 2013, not just in absolute terms but also per capita. This suggests that the carbon tax needs to resume its annual increments (the last increase was in 2012; its bite has since been eroded by inflation) if emissions are to begin again their downward track.

Click here to read the full report.

Meet the New Climate Villain: Cheap Oil

December 9, 2015 by Charles Komanoff Comments (3)

Paris climate negotiators wrangling over global temperature goals might want to spend a moment pondering cheap gasoline.

Fact: after years of steady gains, average gas mileage of new vehicle purchases in the U.S. is down almost a mile per gallon this year, according to data from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.

Fact: Through September, total miles driven in the U.S. this year are up 3.5 percent ― the largest increase in decades.

One thing is driving both trends: cheap gasoline. The average price of gas sold in the U.S. over the past ten months is 25 percent below last year’s price — the steepest drop in at least 70 years. Americans are responding by driving more and dumping sedans for SUV’s and pickups.

Gasoline consumption is on track to rise nearly 3 percent this year. The additional carbon dioxide will be the equivalent of a full year’s emissions from nine coal-fired power plants. (My yardstick is 600 megawatts per plant, operating at 70% capacity factor. See note at end of post for link to calculations.) And that doesn’t count the substantial “upstream” emissions from refining crude oil into gasoline.

Or, if you prefer, the likely 2015 increase in U.S. CO2 emissions caused by cheap gasoline, an estimated 30-35 million metric tons, will equal the entire annual emissions from burning all fossil fuels for all purposes from Ecuador . . . or Denmark . . . or Ireland . . . or Switzerland (take your pick). [Figures are here; multiply by 44/12 to convert from C to CO2.]

Can we be sure this year’s increase in gasoline use is entirely due to the drop in price? Not completely. But the inference is strong.

First, gasoline usage is at least mildly price-sensitive. Based on gasoline’s long-run price-elasticity, a 25 percent drop in price would touch off a roughly 10 percent increase in usage. The entire jump in demand wouldn’t be seen overnight, of course; it would take a decade or so for the lower price to work its way through car buyers’ purchase decisions (as well as manufacturers’ design choices). The 3 percent uptick this year is in line with what one would expect in the initial year.

Second, U.S. gasoline consumption stayed within a fairly narrow band from 2008 to 2014. Prices at the pump held steady as well, except during the worst of the great recession. What’s different this year is the plunge in price.

This year’s jump in CO2 emissions is bad enough. What’s really worrisome is that cheap oil — hence, cheap gasoline — is going to be with us for awhile. So say the experts who prepare the government’s Annual Energy Outlook forecast. I recently compared the 2025 forecast gasoline price between the 2012 AEO, which preceded the price collapse, and the 2015 AEO, which reflects it. Correcting for inflation, the government is projecting a 29 percent lower price of gas in 2025 than it projected three years ago.

When you run the lower price forecast through the price-elasticity for gasoline, you get this startling projection: in 2025, U.S. motorists will buy — and burn — nearly 13 percent more gasoline than would have been expected under the earlier (higher) price forecast. The associated increase in U.S. CO2 emissions in 2025 because gas will be cheaper is going to be huge: it equates to the annual output of 36 coal-fired power plants.

But let’s not stop there. Cheaper crude oil is bringing not just cheaper gas but cheaper diesel and cheaper jet fuel. I’ve run the reduced 2025 AEO price forecasts for all petroleum products through their respective price-elasticities, and the result is truly scary: Compared to projected 2025 emissions with the pre-plunge price trajectory, lower petroleum prices will result in 450 million metric tons of additional U.S. CO2 emissions in that year.

The increase will equal 8-9 percent of today’s U.S. CO2 emissions from all fossil-fuel burning. It will undo nearly all of the vaunted reductions in U.S. emissions since 2005. It will be the emissions equivalent of 100 additional coal-fired power plants. And that’s just for the U.S.

The antidote, of course, is a carbon tax — either a straight-up carbon tax or a hybrid one that surcharges petroleum products. A surcharge would reflect non-climate harms from oil consumption like traffic congestion, also place a charge on oil revenues’ corruption of governance in the U.S. and the Middle East.

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote last January that cheap oil created a political opportunity for a carbon tax. We followed that here with First Tax Oil, Then Carbon. But to our knowledge no one has quantified how dire the need is — until now.

Cheap oil will make a mockery of just about every scenario to move the U.S. and other countries decisively off carbon fuels. Except scenarios based on carbon taxes.

Note: Calculations of increased oil consumption, resulting increase in CO2 emissions, and coal-plant equivalents, may be found in CTC’s carbon-tax spreadsheet model (Excel file).

A Call to Paris Climate Negotiators: Tax Carbon.

November 29, 2015 by Charles Komanoff Comments (12)

On Sunday, November 29, the eve of the UN climate summit in Paris, the Carbon Tax Center released a letter signed by 32 notable individuals urging Paris climate negotiators to focus on national carbon taxes, both for their intrinsic value and as a gateway to a global carbon price.

The group includes four Nobel Laureates, three former U.S. cabinet secretaries who served under four Presidents (from both major political parties), two former vice-chairs of the Federal Reserve System’s board of governors, and three distinguished faculty members from Harvard University’s economics department. It also includes leading carbon tax advocates from across the political spectrum: Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center, Mark Reynolds of Citizens Climate Lobby, and Charles Komanoff of CTC.

The text of the letter is directly below, followed by a complete listing of the signatories. (The identical text and listing are in this pdf.)

Released in Paris and New York, Sunday, November 29, 2015

Taxing carbon pollution will spur everyone ― businesses, consumers and policymakers ― to reduce climate-damaging emissions, invest in efficient energy systems and develop low-carbon energy sources.

This single policy change — explicitly using prices within existing markets to shift investment and behavior across all sectors — offers greater potential to combat global warming than any other policy, with minimal regulatory and enforcement costs.

We urge negotiators at the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Paris to pursue widespread implementation of national taxes on climate-damaging emissions.

We endorse these four principles for taxing carbon to fight climate change without undermining economic prosperity:

1. Carbon emissions should be taxed across fossil fuels in proportion to carbon content, with the tax imposed “upstream” in the distribution chain.

2. Carbon taxes should start low so individuals and institutions have time to adjust, but then rise substantially and briskly on a pre-set trajectory that imparts stable expectations to investors, consumers and governments.

3. Some carbon tax revenue should be used to offset unfair burdens to lower-income households.

4. Subsidies that reward extraction and use of carbon-intensive energy sources should be eliminated.

Signed,

Frank Ackerman Kenneth J. Arrow Jim Barrett Alan S. Blinder Dallas Burtraw Steven Chu Richard N. Cooper Robert H. Frank Shi-Ling Hsu Charles Komanoff N. Gregory Mankiw

Donald B. Marron Jr. Aparna Mathur Warwick McKibbin Gilbert Metcalf Adele C. Morris Robert Reich John Reilly Mark Reynolds Alice M. Rivlin James Rydge Thomas C. Schelling

Robert J. Shapiro George P. Shultz Joseph Stiglitz Steven Stoft Chad Stone Jerry Taylor Richard Thaler Eric Toder Martin Weitzman Gary Yohe

(Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only, and do not connote any organizational approval.)

Frank Ackerman, PhD
Principal Economist, Synapse Energy Economics

Kenneth J. Arrow, PhD
Nobel Prize in Economics, 1972
Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus, Stanford University
Convening Lead Author, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Jim Barrett, PhD
Chief Economist, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy
Former Senior Economist, Joint Economic Committee

Alan S. Blinder, PhD
Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, Princeton University
Vice Chairman, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1994-1996
Member, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 1993-1994

Dallas Burtraw, PhD
Darius Gaskins Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future

Steven Chu, PhD
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1997
U.S. Secretary of Energy, 2009-2013
Elected to Royal Society, 2014
William R. Keenan, Jr. Professor of Physics, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University

Richard N. Cooper, PhD
Maurits C. Boas Professor of International Economics, Harvard University
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, 1977-1981
Former Senior Staff Economist, Council of Economic Advisers

Robert H. Frank, PhD
Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management, Cornell University
Professor of Economics, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University

Shi-Ling Hsu, PhD
John W. Larson Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Florida State University College of Law

Charles Komanoff
Director, Carbon Tax Center

Gregory Mankiw, PhD
Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Chair, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 2003-2005

Donald B. Marron Jr., PhD
Director of Economic Policy Initiatives, Urban Institute
Member, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 2008-2009
Congressional Budget Office, Deputy Director 2005-2007, Acting Director 2006

Aparna Mathur, PhD
Resident Scholar in Economic Policy Studies, American Enterprise Institute

Warwick McKibbin, PhD
Non-resident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Professor of Economics, Australian National University and Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis

Gilbert Metcalf, PhD
Professor of Economics, Tufts University
Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary for Environment and Energy, 2011-2012

Adele C. Morris, PhD
Senior Fellow and Policy Director, Climate and Energy Economics, The Brookings Institution

Robert Reich, PhD
U.S. Secretary of Labor, 1993-1997
Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

John Reilly, PhD
Co-Director, MIT Joint Program on Science and Policy of Global Change
Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management

Mark Reynolds
Executive Director, Citizens Climate Lobby

Alice M. Rivlin, PhD
Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Visiting Professor, Georgetown University
Vice Chair, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1996-1999
Director, White House Office of Management and Budget, 1994-1996
Founding Director, Congressional Budget Office, 1975-1983

James Rydge, PhD
Lead Economist, Global Commission on Economy and Climate, New Climate Economy

Thomas C. Schelling, PhD
Nobel Prize in Economics, 2005
Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University (Emeritus)
Professor of Foreign Policy, National Security, Nuclear Strategy and Arms Control, School of Public Policy, University of Maryland

Robert J. Shapiro, PhD
Chairman, Sonecon
Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs 1997-2001
Senior Fellow, Georgetown University School of Business

George P. Shultz, PhD
Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Secretary of State, 1982-1989
Secretary of the Treasury, 1972-1974
Director, White House Office of Management and Budget, 1970-1972
Secretary of Labor, 1969-1970

Joseph Stiglitz, PhD
Nobel Prize in Economics, 2001
Elected to Royal Society, 2001
John Bates Clark Medal, 1979
Professor of Economics, Columbia University
Former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, World Bank
Chair, President’s Council of Economic Advisers, 1995-1997

Steven Stoft, PhD
Convenor, Global Carbon Pricing Symposium, Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy
Founder and Director, Global Energy Policy Center

Chad Stone, PhD
Chief Economist, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Council of Economic Advisers, Chief Economist 1999-2000, Senior Economist 1996-1998

Jerry Taylor
President and Founder, Niskanen Center
Vice President, Emeritus, Cato Institute
Task Force Director Emeritus for Energy, Environment and Natural Resources, American Legislative Exchange Council

Richard Thaler, PhD
Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Eric Toder, PhD
Institute Fellow, Urban Institute
Co-director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center

Martin Weitzman, PhD
Ernest E. Monrad Professor of Economics, Harvard University

Gary Yohe, PhD
Huffington Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University
Senior Member, UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(Institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only, and do not connote any organizational approval.)

Nordhaus Versus the Pope: Why Francis Is Right

September 28, 2015 by Daniel Lazare Comments (3)

The Yale climate economist William Nordhaus goes after Pope Francis in the current New York Review of Books on the question of how best to prevent global warming. But after landing a few solid punches, he collapses in a muddle all his own by obscuring the difference between carbon taxes and cap-and-trade.

Nordhaus zeroes in a number of passages in “On Care for Our Common Home,” the recent papal encyclical dealing with global warming, that, to his mind, show remarkable ignorance about the workings of modern economics. One passage calls on society “to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals,”while another takes aim at the profit motive:

The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether it is the cost of future resources or the health of the environment; as long as the clearing of a forest increases production, no one calculates the losses entailed in the desertification of the land, the harm done to biodiversity or the increased pollution. In a word, businesses profit by calculating and paying only a fraction of the costs involved. ¶195.

To be sure, resource losses are chronically under-estimated. But Nordhaus maintains that the pope misses an important point, which is that the problem is not markets per se, but markets that are poorly designed and hence encourage the wrong kinds of activity.

“Markets can work miracles when they work properly,”Nordhaus writes, “but that power can be subverted and do the economic equivalent of the devil’s work when price signals are distorted.” The best way to correct such distortions is to see to it that social costs, or “externalities,” are incorporated in the price of a particular commodity or action. Only when economic actors are required to bear the full burden will they then find it profitable to seek out alternatives that are cheaper and cleaner. Otherwise, society finds itself in the strange position of subsidizing waste by allowing manufacturers to emit greenhouse gases and the like for free. As Nordhaus puts it:

Putting a low price on valuable environmental resources is a phenomenon that pervades modern society. Agricultural water is not scarce in California; it is underpriced. Flights are stacked up on runways because takeoffs and landings are underpriced. People wait for hours in traffic jams because road use is underpriced. People die premature deaths from small sulfur particles in the air because air pollution is underpriced. And the most perilous of all environmental problems, climate change, is taking place because virtually every country puts a price of zero on carbon dioxide emissions.

Nordhaus might have mentioned the entrenched political structures that foster such under-pricing in the first place. But let’s not quibble: his logic thus far is impeccable. He then goes off the rails, however, over a passage in the encyclical dealing with carbon-emission permits. According to the pope:

The strategy of buying and selling “carbon credits” can lead to a new form of speculation which would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors. ¶171.

Although Francis is probably talking about cap-and-trade, Nordhaus is not so sure since “carbon credits” is not a term that practitioners usually employ with regard to the trade in carbon emissions. So he argues that “this part of the encyclical is clearly a critique of market-based environmental approaches”— all such approaches, that is — a category that in his view includes both cap-and-trade and carbon taxes.

This leads to a fatal error: defending both without delineating the differences between the two. Nordhaus has argued in favor of carbon taxes in the past, and he concedes in his NYR article that such an approach “is simpler and avoids any of the potential corruption, market volatility, and distributional issues that might arise with cap-and-trade systems.” But since carbon taxing also fiddles with markets, he concludes: “It is unfortunate that he [the pope] does not endorse a market-based solution, particularly carbon pricing, as the only practical policy tool we have to bend down the dangerous curves of climate change and the damages they cause.”

Wrong. Cap-and-trade clearly is a market-based solution because it creates new arenas for the buying and selling of emission permits, complete with futures markets and financial derivatives. But a carbon tax is not. Instead of creating new ways of buying and selling, taxing carbon is a form of direct behavior modification not unlike a traffic fine or a golf-course fee. Instead of encouraging speculation, it does the opposite by making it crystal clear that economic actors will have to pay a set premium for every unit of carbon dioxide they emit.

So while the pope may have gotten a good deal wrong, this is one thing he gets right. Not only does cap-and-trade promote speculation, but Francis is correct in pointing out that, in practice, it has done little to reduce emissions or encourage fundamental technological change. Setting a strict limit on greenhouse gases and then allowing investors to bid on emissions rights up to a certain level is music to the ears of neo-liberal economists for whom there can never be enough markets. But implementing such a program has proved a nightmare.

Due to heavy lobbying by corporations and politicians, the EU’s Emissions Trading System, the largest carbon market in the world, exempts 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Greek economist Andriana Vlachou. Since the system leaves it to individual member states to estimate their emissions, over-reporting has been rife. Offsets, the practice of allowing member states to reap credits by sponsoring carbon-capture projects such as new forests, have been especially problematic. As the Carbon Tax Center’s James Handley has pointed out, estimating savings from such projects is difficult, while verifying that developers are telling the truth about the benefits is even worse. Volatility is another problem. After the EU allocated too many permits, prices plunged so low in 2013 that officials had to take 900 million permits off the market. Since trading is electronic, hackers have meanwhile made off with millions.

It’s the sort of system that only a free-market Chicago economist could love – and, given the opportunities for corruption, maybe an old-school Chicago politician as well. By comparison, a carbon tax is the essence of simplicity. Administrative costs, which involve little more than calculating the carbon content of a given fossil fuel and then levying a charge “upstream,” are minimal. So are enforcement costs. There are no offsets, no complicated negotiations to determine each nation’s emissions quota, no wrestling with entrenched political interests to determine which industries are covered and which are not. While Vlachou reports the EU’s cap-and-trade program weighs especially heavily on poor electricity users, such consequences can be easily mitigated in the case of a carbon tax by earmarking revenues for social programs, investment in poor neighborhoods, or reducing income taxes for lower earners.

Nordhaus is not the only one to blur the difference between a carbon tax and tax-and-trade. Cass R. Sunstein, the Harvard law professor and recent Obama operative, recently made the same blunder in a column defending not only markets but consumerism and economists in general, who, he assures us, are “excellent technicians” and “pretty decent moralists” as well. The pope is not the only one who finds this difficult to swallow. Suspicion of market-based solutions may not be so unjustified after all.