One can observe that, on a global level, CO2 emissions have never been higher. In other words, not only have we not made progress, we have gone backwards. I be

One can observe that, on a global level, CO2 emissions have never been higher. In other words, not only have we not made progress, we have gone backwards. I believe Jevon's paradox is a major cause, along with a lack of understanding of it. A clearer way of presentint Jevon's paradox is: price decline, usage increases. Which is such a standard economic statement that it hardly needs saying. The unintuitive part of the paradox is that we measure the price of a unit of energy, not what we can do with it. I think the best way to combat this is to negotiate for countries to implement a tax on carbon. Negotiating for emissions reductions directly causes problems: you are asking countries to slow their growth. So, they will look for solutions. Increasing efficieny is the natural way, to get more use out of the CO2 you're allowed to use. But then....every unit of CO2 is suddenly more tempting. Hence, our emissions have gone up, not down. There's just so much you can do with it now! If countries agreed to tax carbon, that tax would deal with the externality caused by carbon emissions, and give an incentive to develop non-carbon electricity. This is so obviously the market based solution that I am baffled more people don't advocate for it. It doesn't even have to raise overall taxes. You just cut the income tax or corporate tax to compensate.