Mike Gordon's in the Wall Street Journal, May 2. 2008
Jeffrey Ball's April 14 page-one article on the carbon-market challenges, "Up in Smoke: Two Carbon-Market Millionnaires Take a Hit as U.N. Clamps Down," spotlights challenges to an emerging industry being smothered under a swath of unclear and changing regulations. This nearly $10 billion industry, with all its warts, truly helps to reduce global warming world-wide and it needs every chance to soar, not sputter.
No one objects to strict standards to prevent gaming the system, but only clear and consistent standards will work. If an energy-retrofit project reduced consumption, it reduces consumption. We need only set the standard at a certain bar, and offer anyone who exceeds that bar the right to sell carbon credits to others who do not. Simple as that. (...)