For some reason, the New Republic loves publishing (Ted) Nordhaus and Shellenberger. N&S have an extremely annoying, and in my view very mistaken, shtick — that environmentalists and lefties generally are foolish for trying to use regulations to help limit greenhouse gas emissions, and instead they should support massive investments in technology, the better to achieve epic breakthroughs that make reducing emissions painless. There are many things wrong with this line of thought, and so it’s very refreshing to see TNR’s excellent climate writer Brad Plumer taking a long hard look at the potential for breakthroughs to save our hides. In a nutshell, he concludes that deployment of existing but only marginally economically viable technologies, and small scale innovations are likely to be much more important than game-changing breakthroughs. It’s simply very difficult to get a totally new technology into usable, marketable products in less than two or three decades.

Brad does manage to squeeze in a few references to the advantages of accompanying research with an efficient carbon cap or tax, but I wish carbon pricing had featured more in the story. The complements between pricing and innovation research are significant, and doing either without the other is sure to complicate the process of cutting emissions. Carbon regulations will first and foremost limit the size of the necessary technological leaps. If we imagine some of the technologies we’ll need to address warming twenty years down the road in a world where emissions grow unabated versus one where they’re held roughly constant or decline steadily, it’s clear that the advancement in technology needed to get us to a safe point is far larger in the former case. Given that major breakthroughs are by no means certain, this also suggests that we’re simply less likely to be able to save ourselves with technology in a world in which we do nothing to limit emissions.

As Brad does mention, pricing is also itself an incentive to innovate. It’s an avoidable cost that will encourage businesses and households to use energy more efficiently, which should mean reduced waste. Pricing will also increase the economic return to alternative technologies, which will boost investment. And since we all imagine a role for government investment in research, it’s important to point out that pricing can create a nice stream of government revenues to use in those investments.

This combined approach — using a carbon cap or tax to limit emissions growth and fund research — seems like the most natural way to address the problem. Seems like an easy well to sell tricky policies, too. Republicans are going to argue against a carbon cap or tax as a means to cut emissions by dampening economic activity. The dual approach allows Democrats to say, no, it’s about incentivizing innovation and funding research. We really shouldn’t talk about either approach without noting that both regulation and investment is necessary.