In the middle of the 18th century, Matthew Boulton, the English manufacturer and partner of James Watt, introduced the bright, costly, cut-steel button, which was made by attaching polished steel facets to a steel blank.
Flaccid caps on emissions will slow down this investment and mean a return to the status quo – meaning that more severe and costly cuts in emissions have to be made later.
The EU must also show how costly cuts in emissions can be made compatible with economic competitiveness – border tariffs against countries that fail to make their own cuts would help level the playing field and dampen the incentive for countries to neglect making their own commitments.
The Oratec probes and the machines to run them cost as much as $295,000 a set, but if they replace costly cut-and-sew surgery, they could considerably reduce medical costs.
The U.S., and more recently, Canada, are among nations understandably concerned about hobbling their own economies with costly cuts in fossil fuel use while permitting the still-industrializing nations of the world to pollute with abandon.
They are enjoying an occasional sirloin or other costlier cut, which they believe is less likely to contain the infectious agents that have transmitted the disease to some humans.
While Tokyo may have the rest of the world beat in the "costliest cut" category, it's third to London and second to Paris when it comes to the most expensive city in which to dine.
Since the permits are tradable, those with low marginal costs of abatement will make extra cuts and sell credits to firms that find it more costly to cut emissions.The result is a target achieved at least cost, both to firms and to the whole economy.
From a historical perspective, indeed, the overall impact of the compromise is to bestow another big and costly tax cut on the American populace.
But that deficit projection swelled mostly because of the costly tax cuts deal that Republicans negotiated with Mr. Obama in December.
These $265 billion in cuts were ordered in a blanket attack against "waste, fraud and abuse" by House leaders in a pretense at budget responsibility as they embraced Mr. Bush's far more costly tax cuts.
