President Bush is widely expected to announce new initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the State of the Union address in January; whether or not that happens, the new Democratic majority in Congress is certain to make climate policy a priority, and federal action on climate change in the near future is increasingly likely. What new climate change policies should Congress and the president consider?

In Strategic Options for Bush Administration Climate Policy (AEI Press, December 2006), Lee Lane, the executive director of the Climate Policy Center, explores the strengths and weaknesses of current federal climate change programs and the alternatives that will be considered in the coming months. His conclusions will surprise many: President Bush was right to reject the Kyoto Protocol and should continue to reject calls for “cap-and-trade” programs modeled on Kyoto. Kyoto-style emissions trading would be expensive and ineffective; the costs would be significant but the environmental benefits would be negligible. Instead, Lane calls for consideration of a carbon tax or a similar mechanism as a strategic measure to block political momentum toward a return to the Kyoto system. Lane also advocates greater focus on developing breakthrough clean energy and geoengineering technologies that, in the long run, may offer the only realistic hope of developing cost-effective methods of preventing global warming.

Please join Mr. Lane as he discusses the political and economic dimensions of climate change policy. Thomas Schelling, 2005 Nobel Laureate in economics, and Joseph Aldy of Resources for the Future will comment on Mr. Lane’s presentation. AEI’s Samuel Thernstrom will moderate.