Cap & Trade $175/household/year

The Waxman-Markey bill which would establish a carbon cap and trade system in the US is coming up for a vote fairly soon. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will cost on average $175 per household.

By annually reducing the supply of these permits, the cap-and-trade legislation written by House Democrats Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts would lower the limit on greenhouse gases to 17 percent less than 2005 levels by 2020, according to Bloomberg News.

The CBO analysis estimates that the legislation will cost the richest U.S. households $245 a year, and the poorest will see gains of $40 a year. [environmentalleader.com]

Is it worth it? Is it worth it if we can prevent massive global displacement? One of the front page articles in this weekend's FT, contained the following:

Estimates of the number of environmental refugees in 2050, when the global population is expected to peak at 9 billion and the planet is forecast to be in the throes of a 2°C-or-more temperature rise, vary between 50 million and 1 billion people. But the most commonly repeated number – included in Britain’s 2006 Stern Review – is between 200 and 250 million, or around 10 times the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world today.