The American government just decided to cancel plans for auctioning new oil leases in the Arctic. See this report at the Guardian. According to the article, global warming is not a reason for that decision: Sally Jewell, the interior secretary, said the decision to cancel auctions scheduled for 2016 and 2017 was dictated by current economies for oil, and the harsh conditions of hunting for oil in the Arctic which had forced Shell to pull out. Under that reasoning, they may restart these auctions once the Arctic ice is gone completely and drilling becomes easier. But anyway, I just noticed from this that there is already a “price on carbon” as far as offshore oil is concerned. That price is whatever the oil companies have to pay for the lease and for royalties. I looked a bit around and found the monthly report by the “Bureau of Ocean Energy Management” on oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. From that I learned that the government has set royalty rates at…
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