Again, grabbed from a comment I made at Bart Verheggen’s:

I’ve said it often enough, but I’ll repeat what I think we should do while waiting for clarity regarding sensitivity and other unresolved issues with the science:

1. Tax CO2 at a starting rate of $12/ton and revisit the rate every 10 years, adjusting the rate to reflect changes in CO2 concentrations and a pre-agreed metric for climate change that has occurred in the interim.

2. Spend a global total of $100 billion for the transfer of technology to the developing world for the purpose of reducing the impact of development technologies, in hopes that they can leapfrog one or two generations of energy development.

3. Commit to spending over the course of this century on moving roads inland, removing permission for construction on threatened coasts and flood plains. The EPA found that this would cost about $400 billion for the United States about 20 years ago–adjust for inflation. But that’s a one-time cost.

4. Continue Steven Chu’s investment strategy for reducing costs in renewable energy, storage and transmission. Continue with ARPA-E at full funding. We may have another Solyndra–probably will, in fact. But we may also have another Tesla, which didn’t technically come from that program, but serves as an inspiration.

5. Encourage the U.S. EPA to regulate CO2 emissions from large emitters.

6. Accelerate permitting for new nuclear power plants to maintain nuclear power’s percentage of electricity at 20% in the U.S.

7. Uprate existing hydroelectric plants to take advantage of advances in turbine technology.

8. Mandate uptake of GPS within the air traffic control infrastructure and controlled and one-step descent on landing.

9. Homogenize permitting and regulation for installation of solar and wind power. Maintain current levels of subsidies and RPS.

10. Increase utilization of Combined Heat and Power facilities from its current 7% of primary energy production to the world average of 9% and then by steps in northern regions to benchmark levels found in Denmark, Holland and other northern European countries.

11. Support introduction of charging stations for electric vehicles.

12. Force existing coal power plants to meet best available technology standards or close.