04/17/2019 Ostrom Lecture on Environmental Policy - Barry Rabe: The Politics of Carbon Pricing

Carbon pricing in the form of carbon taxes or cap-andtrade has been broadly embraced by economists for decades as the best policy option for mitigating the threat of climate change linked to fossil fuel use. But carbon pricing has struggled politically in the United States and abroad. More than two decades since the Kyoto Protocol embraced carbon pricing as a preferred climate strategy, it remains among the least likely policies to be adopted and among the most likely to be reversed or weakened if approved. The talk will examine these political challenges across each stage of the policy life-cycle, considering both the impediments to carbon pricing but also key design elements of the more successful and durable policies established to date.