It took me days to get around to it, because it’s so damn long, but Paul Krugman’s piece in the New York Times magazine on climate change economics filled me with hope, unexpectedly.

There are many parts of the well-written article that I liked, in general it does a good job of listing the economic arguments about climate change, and ultimately wholeheartedly agreeing we need a carbon price, the real debate is how fast we should raise the price to rational levels. That in itself deserves a few cheers.

But what most lightened my mood was the passing note that the WTO recently published a missive that a carbon tariff (essential to get US industry and labor on board with a carbon pricing mechanism) would probably pass muster under WTO rules. Everything else I’ve read on the subject suggested we’d need to change WTO rules (or withdraw, which would have economic consequences vastly preferable to avoiding a carbon price, but still probably unacceptable to the average US voter).

So three cheers for the possibility, however slim, that Congress could, if it had the balls, actually pass both cap and trade and a carbon tariff some time this decade!