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Comment by mac01021 | Hacker News Reader

The cost of undoing the emissions only sets the price on CO2 emissions if that cost is lower than the cost of enduring the damage associated with not undoing them.

The cost of enduring those damages may be (and probably is) immeasurably large. But unless we're starting from some kind of reasonable estimate of the cost of the damage, however approximate, it can't be right to say that these guys are setting the price on atmospheric CO2.

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> The cost of enduring those damages may be (and probably is) immeasurably large.

This is what I'm getting at. There's resistance because we're not giving any specific numbers, only saying that they're "probably very high". This is far from a convincing argument.

With this technology we can instead say: "Ok, so clearing a tonne of CO2 emissions from the atmosphere is going to cost $X. These are going to be your additional expenses in the foreseeable future."

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The idea is to price CO2 emissions by the cost of CO2 scrubbing. Then a law would be set in place requiring measurement of CO2 emissions - CO2 scrubbed, which is then multiplied by industry median cost of scrubbing, which would be then taxed.

> The cost of undoing the emissions only sets the price on CO2 emissions if that cost is lower than the cost of enduring the damage associated with not undoing them.

That's correct. that's why parent poster said "assuming the right legislation forcing them to do so is in place". The cost of enduring the damage would be fines and/or jail time.

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