Why did the world end up with Cap’n Trade instead of a Carbon Tax to curb climate change emissions?
I believe the answer lies in the idiosyncrasies of the political right and left: the left loves taxes but distrusts markets and prefers subsidies while the right understands markets but dislikes taxes.
The Carbon Tax is really all about letting the market solve the problem. Make it progressively more expensive to emit climate change gases and let the market find the best ways to reduce them. It would be natural for market minded people to fight for this solution – except for the problem that marked minded people normally don’t like the T word.