The Economist has long been concerned by global warming. But as… well, an economics-minded paper, it certainly isn’t buying the cap-and-trade plan many U.S. politicians are selling:

Both the president and cap-and-trade’s supporters in Congress seem inclined to respond with subsidies for pet technologies that might help those hardest hit, or with mandates to cut emissions in particular ways. The president, for example, wants to double the amount of electricity that comes from renewables, meaning wind farms, solar-power plants and the like. Handouts for hybrid cars and for coal plants with low emissions are also popular.

The main effect of these schemes would be to raise the costs of cutting emissions. Much of the money doled out by the government would inevitably be wasted, adding to the overall bill for fighting climate change. Worse, such measures would risk distorting the carbon market, steering private capital as well as public money away from the cheapest technologies and towards those that have caught the eye of the politicians.

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