"If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."
These days, nearly everyone agrees about one thing, Global Warming is here, and we humans are indeed the cause. So now what?
Big business got years of foot-dragging out of early studies that served to undermine scientific evidence that the planet was warming. Energy moguls such as Exxon and the American Petroleum Industry, who once funded "uncertainty" research against conventional wisdom are now calling for emissions regulations in the form of Cap and Trade. With Cap and Trade, companies must reduce their carbon emissions to certain levels (as yet to be determined), and if unable to do so, can buy rights from other companies who have met their cap and have reduced their pollution to lower levels, allowing them to sell the surplus.
Some of the big debates right now are just what levels of reductions companies face in the future, and how will the determinations be made. For example, if a company has already reduced its carbon by 10% in the last year, will they be forced to further cut emissions?
Environmentalists watching the rush are voicing fears that all this sudden "green-flag waving" is merely a new tactic for companies to protect themselves rather than saving the planet.
Critics of Cap and Trade argue that these measures would do little to reduce the actual amount of pollution, since smaller companies would be selling credits they would otherwise not produce in carbon in the first place. They argue that the only way to stop the greenhouse effect is by reducing carbon, and that means cutting pollution by more than 50%. Even setting standards lower than levels produced just ten years ago would still add to Global Warming.
full Business Week article
once again, Wikipedia has it all- Find out more about Carbon Cap and Trade
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