>We compared 10 climate policies that stimulate innovation (e.g. carbon taxes, deployment subsidies, cutting fossil fuel subsidies) and found that increasing government budgets for public clean energy research and development (R&D) is the most effective—even more effective than carbon taxes.

This causality seems tenuous. I'm confused how an enlarged budget for Renewable Energy R&D necessitates a reduction in emissions? There'a lot of jumps being made there.

On the other hand, a carbon tax is straight forward: a tax is applied on carbon, and it creates a "price signal", where fossil fuels products become more expensive relative to those based on cleaner tech. This fundamental price signal--with the price on carbon increasing year over year--incentives investment into renewable energy and clean tech. The market runs full speed towards a clean transition.

How would "carbon taxes become more politically acceptable"? The arrow of causality is in the wrong direction: it is the carbon tax that MAKES clean energy R&D the obvious thing to do.

And finally, there are tons of studies that have explored what a clean energy mix would look like. Here's Stanford professor Mark Jacobson's: https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/Coun...