Copenhagen Crisis: Why the US Needs Cap and Trade It is often
argued that cap and trade legislation requires too many
compromises with—and give-aways to—polluting corporations to
pass the House and Senate, and that consequently it is
ineffective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While
environmentalists are failing to support cap and trade, those
opposing action on climate change are fiercely attacking it. Yet
such a system is essential when it comes to getting global
action on climate change—not least at the increasingly
imperilled climate summit in Copenhagen in December—for it
delivers a transparent benchmark by which nations can judge each
other’s commitment. To state the obvious, cap and trade—by
putting caps on the emissions of the principal polluting
industries across the economy while letting carbon emitters buy
and sell carbon permits among themselves—mandates an overall cap
on a nation’s emissions. The Waxman-Markey bill, for
example—which passed in the House in June but must now be
reconciled wi