How About a Carbon Tax?

In addition to having established the Pigou Club, Gregory Mankiw presents in this NYT article the most complete and concise argument for approaching the small matter of global warming. This blogger has mentioned this in a number of posts but nothing beats Prof. Mankiw's command of the applicable principles of economics on the one hand while identifying the trade offs and political mobilization that would be required on the other.

The world is obsessed with half developed and fantastic ideas such as bio-fuels, cap and trade arrangements and fuel economy standards. he exhausts the pros and cons and states that a carbon tax is the most efficient way to approach it. the difficult part is to convince governments to negotiate an international carbon tax regime. petroleum exporters and consumers obsessed with keeping nominal fuel taxes low would be difficult to win over. That though is not the work of the policy wonk and he leaves the rest to the lobby professionals and the politicians to cut the deal.