There should be Cap-and-trade system or something similar for greenhouse gasses.

I shall address it in several points. The first point I would like to address is the scope of this debate. My opponent has chosen for us to focus on Carbon (most commonly CO2, but not limited to that, as partially burnt hydrocarbons are also carbon gases) and Nitrous (any gas that has 3 or less nitrogen atoms in it, apart from N2. Well N2 is a Nitrous gas, but I'm not going to be so mean as to argue that). So, for the scope of this debate, we are going to be looking at Carbon (not limited to just CO2) and Nitrous, nothing else. And since this debate is "for greenhouse gases" we can ignore harmful non-greenhouse gases. Now, I will go into my opponent's arguments. 1)The Moral Argument My opponent claims that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to make companies pay if they are harming the people of their society. Under this moral argument, such a CaT policy must also target individuals, since if they are harming the people of society, they too must pay (you cannot argue that companies harm people, but that other do not without invoking special pleading). I accept this moral argument, because I too believe that if you harm someone, you should have to pay to remedy that harm. Next, my opponent claims that this is no different than fining people who drive while intoxicated or recklessly. Unfortunately, this is not an accurate analogy. Remember, CaT means that a company that is tossing out a lot of pollutants can pay another company to cut their emissions so that the first company can continue. This is the equivalent of paying other drivers to drive safely so you can continue to drive recklessly. Or, since the legal limit is .08, if you're caught at .14 (legally a DUI), paying some other motorist who hasn't drank anything (and so at .00) for some "alcohol cap" so that you are not legally drunk until .16 bac. Obviously, such a policy would not be conducive to a safe driving society. 2)Economics argument My opponent points to the harm of various gases. However, no sources are present, so I cannot determine which gases he is referring to. So I will just do a quick run through of common gases. Nitrous Oxide – This is a highly powerful green house gas (about 300 times more powerful than CO2), however, its dangers become present only in significant concentrations (75%) [1]. Needless to say, 75% (what is used for anesthesia) is so far beyond the concerns of emissions, that there is no practical use of CaT for this. Nitrogen Dioxide – This is a very dangerous chemical, however it is not a GHG, "The concentrations of the nitrogen oxides NO and NO2 and carbon monoxide (CO) are also increasing. Although these gases themselves are not greenhouse gases, they affect atmospheric chemistry…" [2]. CO2 – This is a GHG, however we find that there are no harmful effects under 20,000 and studies have shown that exposure to 6% (or 60,000 ppm) has no permanent effects [3]. Hydrocarbons – These can be any variety of partially burned oils, fuels, or alcohol. They can even been the vapors of such. These can pose serious effects. However, CaT does nothing to help in this regard, because these are best when burned completely (turned into CO2, H2O, and N2), that makes them safe, but because they are still a carbon chemical, CaT or Carbon Taxes will still penalize the company or individuals. Therefore, there is no reason for companies to want to comply (since they are still paying either way). 3)Success of CaT programs. My opponent points to the "success" of the 1990 CaT of SO2 (along with other chemicals). However, this is questionable, at best. Sure, we can see that SO2 emissions have dropped 32% over the next 11 years, and if we stopped there, we would be able to say "success. " However, we do need to dig deeper on this. If we go look at the EU for the same time frame (from 1990 to 2001), we see that they dropped their SO2 emissions by 64% [4, page 6 through 11]. And if you look at emissions per capita (rather than total) they beat the pants off of us (we dropped 51%, they dropped 79%). They also looked at emission per GDP, but that only shows more of the same (EU beating out the US). The EU used simple emission controls, rather than CaT systems [4, page 2]. It should be noted though, that both the US and EU have estimated saved money on their efforts (the US saved an estimated $77 billion a year, and the EU saved an estimated $140 billion a year) I will now go into my arguments. 1) CaT creates a fake product. CaT creates "emission credits" to be sold and bought. These create massive problems because they are not real. They are nothing more than an economic game of musical chairs. Once the legislation ends and the music stops, whoever is left holding the "credits" is left with nothing. This also has the serious issue with companies being created for the sole purpose of selling off their "emission credits" as a prime source of income. Or creating sub companies that each get their own annual allowance from the government. This is part of the reason that the US did not lower emissions as much as the EU did. Companies are in business for money, so one of the first things they do with regulation, is look for loopholes. Some companies will find them, and water down the success of the program. 2) Carbon based CaT will not reduce dangerous chemicals. Since we are talking about carbon in general, and not just hydrocarbons, there is no reason to burn them completely. Let us look at a simple device that is currently on pretty much every car on US roads, the Catalytic Converter [5]. The Cat converts dangerous chemicals (such as CO, HC, and NOx) into non-dangerous chemicals (H2O, CO2, and N2). A carbon based CaT will charge you for your carbon whether it is CO2 or CO or HC (hydrocarbons), even though CO2 is, by far, the least dangerous. Now, if you're getting charged regardless, there is no longer any reason to put a cat on a car (that should be quoted) since it only adds costs. By removing the incentive (since you're charged regardless because carbon is carbon), manufacturers will drop that expense and we will have less CO2 emissions, and have more CO and HC emissions (which are far more dangerous). Any element that is subject to CaT must have a safe form that is not subject to it (for the 1990's NOx, N2 was the immune gas). CO2 is the safest carbon gas after the burning process, so for CaT to have any effect, CO2 must be immune. 3) Other options allow for superior results. As seen in [4], command and control emissions work far better. Rather than allowing companies and people to trade credits, simply create a ceiling and rules and have fees for going over them. We can see that from 2000 to 2009, coal energy production has increased by 22%[7][8]. The creation of incentives for better energy sources is a superior option than punishing the bad sources. Natural gas releases 179.5% more usuable energy per tonne of CO2 released than coal, or that it releases 64.2% less CO2 per MWhr [6]. Also, nuclear has no CO2 emissions in the energy generation process. Coal still produces 44.9% of the USA's electricity. Changing that to NG (which is currently cheaper than coal anyway), would remove almost 5 billion tonnes of CO2 per year from US emissions. Thank you, [1] . http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... [2] . http://www.un.org... [3] . http://www.ccohs.ca... [4] . http://ec.europa.eu... [5] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [6] . http://www.debate.org... [7] . http://www.eia.gov... [8] . http://www.eia.gov...