Can you explain how this is, or should I read back farther in this thread?
I think that carbon-pricing is less-than-a-half measure because it's goal is to reduce carbon emissions, however both measures don't directly address the cause of the issue but rather incentivize behaviour, as Praktik has said.
Cap-and-trade allows the generation of carbon credits which can be purchased and used to offset pollution. This results in essentially a shell game where carbon emissions are shifted around from relative non-polluters to polluters such that its more economically feasible to purchase credits rather than reduce pollution. For example, why would a coal power plant install expensive filters when they can buy credits to offset their emissions if it's cheaper to do so.
Carbon taxation is similar to taxes on cigarettes, higher taxes in theory to reduce demand. The issue here is that some demand is inelastic. For example, it's not an option to reduce your heat in winter, and by using those natural gas resources you are incurring a carbon cost, hence will be taxed. Further, since everything in modern society is somehow using those resources, everything will be taxed: your food was trucked in, your clothes took energy to make, and then of course the energy you consume by using a computer or TV. Some things you can reduce, some things you simply can't, and hence it becomes a simple penalty/cost for using resources in addition to what you are already incurring.
The enrichment part comes from the fact that both methods require some sort of market place or bureaucracy to oversee and/or manage, and if you are not a company, the end user (you, the common Canadian worker) will pay for all of this as companies include this as a cost of doing business and blend it into the cost of providing services.
So you will end up paying for something that won't really achieve what is necessary to address the dire environmental situation you and prakrit have both pointed out. Instead, you will end up paying more money for this system and the people who run it as opposed to what you actually want to pay for, the goal of reducing emissions. When you consider this in relation to Canada/US, the Canadian cost of living would be relatively higher than the US, and put us at an economic disadvantage for locating, e.g. manufacturing jobs.
Economics isn't always the answer. I previously gave the example of CFCs which was outright eliminated via legislation (and international treaty) in many applications, and now the ozone situation is much improved.
Why is it that this is different? Why not, let's phase out fossil fuel cars and from 2025 only electric cars can be manufactured? Why not build nuclear plants and in 15 years when they are constructed simply close all the coal and natural gas plants?
You obviously care for this issue and I agree, it's pretty convincing that something needs to be done, and bickering around with a scheme that could reduce emissions doesn't really solve anything but fits nicely into a get-rich-quick scheme for consultants, companies to manage the marketplace, the whole bureaucracy that does... something... and then YOU pay.
