Carbon tariffs are a political gimmick, not a real response to climate change

Enter carbon tariffs, an idea that’s attractive to Senate Democrats, and not just because they could use the money. We’re running a one-way experiment with the only climate we have, and that’s a bad idea. Taxing imports that are carbon-intensive to produce sounds like an easy way to introduce better incentives, especially for developing countries eager to emulate China’s coal-fueled economic boom. Unfortunately, carbon tariffs are a political gimmick that won’t solve the real problems they ostensibly address, and might well introduce new ones.