Carbon Cap & Trade

The United States is one of the last countries in the world to not have a carbon cap and trade system. What is a carbon cap you ask? A carbon cap is a legal limit that is set by the government on the amount of green house gases that can be generated in a given period of time. So how does trade come into the picture? Simply put, a carbon cap and trade system is set up to regulate the amount of pollution dumped into our atmosphere . When a company reaches the maximum amount of green house gasses that it can produce then it has reached the, “Cap”. This company now has two choices; it can either shut down operation or buy, “Trade”, remaining credits from another company who has not reached their limit. After a company has sold cap credits they can no longer use them for themselves. If they need more then they must buy back additional credits from someone else that is willing to sell.

So why are we not already doing this? Good question, and one can only speculate on the many answers, but I can say expect it to happen soon. California is setting a really good example by starting the first cap and trade system in the US in 2006. And I just read today that by the end of next year California has mandated that at least 20% of all it’s energy is to be generated by means of renewable energy. Finally we seem to be opening our eyes.

~ by Solar Arise Corp. on April 2, 2009.