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Norwegian climate policy has been marked by several shifts with regard to adopted targets and measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Three knowledge-based discourses – respectively a tax discourse, a quota discourse and a technology discourse – have been influential throughout. By tracing the development of Norwegian climate policy from 1989 until 2008, it is shown, however, that while significant in early phases of policymaking, the discourses lose influence in the phase when policy solutions are designed and implemented. Those ideas and ambitions that characterise the ruling discourses in Norwegian climate policy are not necessarily materialised in actual policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A vast economics literature embraces taxation of the carbon content of fossil fuels as the superior policy approach for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, experience around the world suggests that carbon taxes face exceedingly difficult political hurdles. Federal experience in the United States and in Canada confirms this pattern. This article reviews sub-federal policy development among American states and Canadian provinces, a great many of which have pursued climate policy development. With one major exception, explicit carbon taxation appears to remain a political nonstarter. At the same time, states and provinces have been placing indirect carbon prices on fossil fuel use through a wide range of policies. These tend to strategically alter labeling, avoiding the terms of 'tax' and 'carbon' in imposing costs. The article offers a framework for considering such strategies and examines common design features, including direct linkage between cost imposition and fund usage to build political support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]