> carbon removal technologies that would allow us to set a price per ton of carbon released Interesting idea. This reminds me of the "Future Cost Function" use

> carbon removal technologies that would allow us to set a price per ton of carbon released Interesting idea. This reminds me of the "Future Cost Function" used in my country to decide the marginal cost of another MWh of hydroelectric generation. Since this country generates over half of its power from hydroelectricity, and the amount of rain varies seasonally (and also depends on the conditions of both the Pacific and the Atlantic), there's always the question: should we use more of the water from the dams, or should we save the water for later and use the thermal generators instead? If we use too much water, and the next rainy season doesn't rain enough, the reservoirs could run dry (which is really bad, since we don't have enough thermal generators); if we save too much water, we're wasting money on expensive fuel (and in the worst case, the reservoirs could get full and have to throw away the excess water, without having the chance to use it to generate electricity). The "Future Cost Function" model simulates the future cost of the thermal generation for several scenarios, to arrive at a cost for the water which minimizes the total cost (given that less costly generators are dispatched first, so a higher cost for the water means more and more costly thermal generators will be dispatched). What you propose seems similar: you are suggesting to use something we can easily measure (the cost of removing one ton of CO2 from the air) to decide a price for something which would appear to have a zero price otherwise (the cost of emitting one ton of CO2 into the air). I would go even further, given the similarities with what I described above, and somehow put a "target concentration" in the formula, so that initially the cost is higher (to fund removal for the extra CO2 which is already there) and automatically winds down to near zero if the concentration gets near the target (or even overshoots it).