[Hermel]

No, the fundamental issue with carbon credits is its economics. It would be much healthier to set a fixed price for carbon emissions. This price should be based on the externalities caused by the emissions. In the worst case, the price is the cost of extracting the CO2 from the atmosphere again. Such a fixed price, a carbon tax, would help the industry because it would make production costs more predictable, and it would be much more fair than carbon credits assigned to those firms that hire the best lobbyists. When fixing the emission quantity instead of its price, the price of carbon credits tend to either go to 0 (if there are too many) or infinity (if there are not enough) at the end of a credit period, which is total nonsense. However, for politicians, carbon credits are much more attractive because being able to distribute them gives them power.

[phs318u]

In Australia we had (for a brief moment) a carbon tax. It was mercilessly vilified by the Murdoch press who aided and abetted one of the darkest periods of Australian political life in decades, and resulted in the downfall of a government.

"The ill-fated Australian carbon tax lasted just two years. ... Emissions dropped almost immediately after it was introduced as businesses moved to technologies that emitted less. That price signal had an impact. When it was dumped in 2014, carbon emissions began to rise again almost immediately."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-26/carbon-tax-has-come-b...

[mcmoor]

> price is the cost of extracting the CO2 from the atmosphere again

It's actually interesting not only because it encourages people not to emit carbon, it also encourage research for CO2 scrubber. If the price is attached to the current cheapest mass CO2 extractor then those people will be incentivized to have it even cheaper.

[asdff]

Like another comment said this would only serve to limit demand and incentivize a more rapid shift to get off of oil's teet. The industry probably would fight hard against this and win.