When coal is burned it emits a lot of carbon. Nearly 200,000 Americans work in jobs related to the mining and burning of coal. How would these workers be affected if a Cap and Trade program were instituted in the United States to mitigate climate change? Explain.

A Cap and Trade program while preferable to other regulations will still result in less production of fossil energy and thus jobs related to mining and burning of coal will be hurt. This is because the demand for labor in those markets will decrease thus causing wages and employment to go down.

In general, when the government reduces the output of a good, the workers in charge of producing the good will be negatively affected.