The time for timidity has passed; politicians must dare to make polluters pay as part of a vision for a healthier, happier future. This is the message of a new op-ed by Climate Focus' Lead Legal Consultant Darragh Conway published by Climate Home News, an independent news site dedicated to bringing important climate stories to as large an audience as possible. 

Governments adopting carbon prices must strike a delicate balance between putting in place an effective policy and managing potential opposition. Many, if not most, governments have sought to achieve this through watering down policies to the point where they are less – or not at all – effective.

Proponents of this ‘slowly-slowly’ approach argue that even a weak policy is better than nothing; that adopting the instrument helps build capacities and set the stage for later increases. But such approaches clearly do not pass muster. At best, they risk wasting precious political capital on ineffective policies. At worst, they offer a fig leaf that obscures the lock-in of high-carbon investments for decades to come.

Read the complete text here.