Washington is once again talking about pricing carbon. The Clean Electricity Payment Program might be dead, but a carbon tax could still be on the table. It could also be replaced by expanded loan guarantees for clean energy, or by clean energy tax credits. Whichever form it might take, the politics will be tough. They always are, until they suddenly aren’t.
Look at the U.K., the host of the Glasgow climate talks, for some guidance. The first attempt to ban a fossil fuel happened six centuries before the world knew it caused climate change. King Edward I banned the burning of "sea coal,” what bituminous coal was known as back then, in 1306. It sickened his subjects, including his own mom, and fouled the air so much that not even he could hide from the soot and smell. The maximum penalty for repeat offenders: death.
That is a draconian price to pay. It also did not last. The ban was soon turned into a tax, before that, too, eventually went away. At its peak in 1920, the British coal sector employed over a million people, 5% of the workforce. By now there are fewer than a thousand coal workers in the country, two remaining coal plants, and a total phaseout scheduled for 2025.