We look at a new Renaissance in climate policy among the US left - a shift from making carbon more expensive to making green energy cheaper. This is a shift from narrow pricing tactics to an overarching industrial policy.

1. 23. Carbon Pricing and Beyond
Adam Briggle
UNT Phil 4250 Climate Change
adam.briggle@unt.edu

3. Outline
• Objective: To explore the new climate policy ‘renaissance’ that is emerging on the
left in the US.
• Why focus on the left (Democrats/liberals/progressives)?
• What is the climate policy Renaissance all about? Two principles.
• What is carbon pricing and why move beyond it?
• The Renaissance understood as a shift from narrow carbon focus to broad
industrial policy (the ghost of Hamilton!)
• What is the climate policy Renaissance all about? Three pillars: SIJ
• Remaining points of debate/controversy

4. 2016 and 2020 Republican Party Platform
• Seven mentions of “climate change”
1. “Climate change is far from this nation’s most pressing national
security issue.”
2. “The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is
a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution.”
3. “We demand an immediate halt to U.S. funding for the U.N.’s
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).”

5. Why this focus on
“the left”?
• Well, because unfortunately climate
change has become super partisan in
the US.
• Republican Party and Democrat
Party Platforms
• Roberts’ second principle:
Republicans are not going to help
(though note generational change!)

6. Flurry of climate policy on the left
• Evergreen Action – from Jay Inslee’s campaign
• House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis – Democrats
• The Blue Green Alliance – labor and environmental groups
• The Equitable and Just Climate Platform – 300 environmental organizations
• A Climate Policy Renaissance!
• One way to see what is happening – the Green New Deal is evolving from
aspirations to details: tools, mechanisms, plans. The Green New Details
• A new consensus is forming. And this is a real paradigm shift…

7. So, what’s this Renaissance all about?
• Two principles
1. Net zero by 2050 is the new baseline (from the alarming and
influential IPCC report y’all read – the 1.5 C report)
• This is “policy radicalism”
2. Carbon Pricing has been ‘dethroned’ (thus the title of this lecture)

8. What is carbon pricing and why move beyond
it?
• Two mechanisms
• Cap and Trade or emissions trading schemes (ETSs) (the integration of market and
government based solutions)
• Carbon taxes
• It is not dead…indeed still viable and growing worldwide (61 carbon
pricing initiatives worldwide)…don’t take options off the table!
• But in the US, raising prices is politically a non-starter.
• We are not going to get one blanket policy (a federal carbon tax or cap and
trade scheme) – from silver bullet to silver buckshot.

9. The Shift
• The US is (maybe!) going from
narrow, technical market
mechanisms to make carbon more
costly…
• … to big, complex industrial
policy in an effort to make
carbon-free energy cheap.
• This, by the way, is
ALEXANDER HAMILTON!
Nations thrive by investing in
industries (lifting the elbow of the
invisible hand).
• And this is (maybe!) a winner for
(gasp!) bi-partisan consensus:
JOBS, Manufacturing, Made in
America…?!!

10. Three Pillars: the SIJ alignment
1. Standards
• Electricity, cars, and buildings (2/3rds emissions)
• Target low-hanging fruit with direct, sector-specific standards and incentives
• Details differ: e.g., clean energy standards or EPA regulations
• The vision: electrify everything! (next lecture)
2. Investments
• Massive public investments in green infrastructure, tech, and research.
• Good jobs
3. Justice
• Economic/energy transitions impact the working class hardest – unions, fossil fuel
workers, frontline communities.
• Success requires broad coalitions.
• Put workers first (not emissions elimination first with workers as an afterthought)

11. Remaining debates and conflicts – what to think
about these approaches to climate policy?
1. Accountability for fossil fuel companies (lawsuits, getting the
financial system to account for climate risks of fossil fuel investments,
ending fossil fuel subsidies)?
2. Keep it in the ground – supply side policies like fracking bans?
3. Carbon pricing – maybe not central but still a role to play?
4. Nuclear power?
5. Carbon capture, use, and sequestration? (lecture on geoengineering)

12. Green growth
• Ultimately, this new paradigm is consistent
with the ‘iron law’ of climate change – any
climate policy must be compatible with
economic growth.
• “Let’s hope economic growth can be the
solution to the problem it created in the
first place!”
• Ackbar, galactic guru