Cap-and-trade creator says it won’t work

The creator of the cap-and-trade concept told the Wall Street Journal that he doubts the scheme will work for greenhouse gas emissions. According to the article:

Mr. [Thomas] Crocker sees two modern-day problems in using a cap-and-trade system to address the global greenhouse-gas issue. The first is that carbon emissions are a global problem with myriad sources. Cap-and-trade, he says, is better suited for discrete, local pollution problems. “It is not clear to me how you would enforce a permit system internationally,” he says. “There are no institutions right now that have that power.”…

The other problem, Mr. Crocker says, is that quantifying the economic damage of climate change — from floods to failing crops — is fraught with uncertainty…

“Once a cap is in place,” he warns, “it is very difficult to adjust.” For example, buyers of emissions permits would see their value reduced if the government decided in the future to loosen the caps…

Crocker’s last point is more correctly expressed as there being a great deal of uncertainty about whether climate change is necessarily a bad thing. A slightly warming planet, after all, is most likely much more desirable than a slightly cooling planet.