California wants to extend its “cap-and-trade” scheme for regulating carbon emissions. The Hill newspaper reports,
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and top state Democrats announced Tuesday they would seek an extension of the state’s cap-and-trade emissions reduction program — countering Trump administration efforts to thwart such initiatives.
I guess you have to admire their commitment to the bit? Pres. Trump gave California an out, but they refused to take it. The Hill quotes Trump as saying,
He claimed that the Golden State “punishes carbon use by adopting impossible caps on the amount of carbon businesses may use, all but forcing businesses to pay large sums to ‘trade’ carbon credits to meet California’s radical requirements.”
But don’t call it a carbon tax. In the normal course of things, the cap-and-trade system would have expired in 2030 without an extension from the state legislature.
California resident Joel Kotkin happens to have a piece in the April issue of The Spectator World under the headline,
The climate has changed on climate change:
Trump is likely to be blamed for the implosion of the green agenda, but its collapse long pre-dates his re-ascension
Kotkin writes,
Over the past few years green policies — notably the drive for “net zero” — have been failing. Both markets and politicians have seen the light. What Joe Biden’s treasury secretary Janet Yellen once called “the greatest business opportunity of the twenty-first century” has revealed itself to be something of a disaster.
Kotkin notes,
A recent Gallup poll shows that just 3 percent of Americans consider climate change and the environment their main concern. Even young people, the group most concerned with climate change, rank it far below inflation, housing, gun violence, jobs and corruption.
He says that, “Even Californians seem to be losing their passion for renewable energy.” But not their governor, he still clings to the old religion.
The climate war could be over, if they want it to be.
