Too Clever By Half?

A Financial Post piece linked off AL Daily suggests pegging the rate of a carbon emissions tax to the actual level of CO2 induced warming as measured by weather satellites in the tropical troposphere:

...climate models predict that, if greenhouse gases are driving climate change, there will be a unique fingerprint in the form of a strong warming trend in the tropical troposphere, the region of the atmosphere up to 15 kilometres in altitude, over the tropics, from 20° North to 20° South. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that this will be an early and strong signal of anthropogenic warming. Climate changes due to solar variability or other natural factors will not yield this pattern: only sustained greenhouse warming will do it.

This is pitched as a way to appease global warming skeptics: if anthropogenic warming isn't happening, the tax will stay low. The piece asserts that this system would encourage the private sector to monitor warming in order to assess future tax burdens, and would encourage companies to preemptively reduce their emissions. But it seems likely that by the time the tax would really kick in, it might be too late. Then again, it's getting late already.