[sarabande]

I agree with your argument that since consumers are the ones who demand the product, they are the reason such companies exist.

However, customers typically have little information on how many greenhouse gases are produced for a given product they buy, and especially not when it counts -- that is, in a store before a purchase -- so they cannot be reasonably expected to vote with their wallet.

One solution might be a combination of:

1) Labeling all products with the emissions that took to create them, so customers can easily vote with their wallet. Perhaps display them next to prices, perhaps with a label like Nutritional Facts on food products, or like a warning when some emissions threshold is exceeded, like smoking risks on cigarette cartons. Customers should not have to watch documentaries or do research on which companies are environmentally friendly and which aren't, but rather have that information given at purchase time.

One or both of:

2a) Subsidizing environmentally-friendly ways of production (perhaps even just for a time) so that these companies can survive against their coal-burning competitors. This way, customers voting with their wallet don't have to pay extreme prices for alternatives just because they think reducing greenhouse gases is good for the world -- with subsidies or tariffs, we could make alternatives somewhat price-competitive.

2b) Taxing goods made with too many greenhouse gases (i.e. the reverse of 2a).

[adrianN]

It's very hard to find out how many GHGs were produced for a particular product. Manufactures have massive supply chains. Tracing a product back to the ores from which it comes is a daunting task.