Evidence since mid‑2022 shows a clear global trend toward wider use of cap‑and‑trade and carbon taxes to price negative externalities in production and industry, matching Friedberg’s directional forecast.

• The World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing reports show steady expansion of carbon pricing instruments: 73 instruments covering ~23% of global GHG emissions in 2023, 75 instruments covering ~24% in 2024 with US$104B in annual revenue, and 80 instruments covering ~28% of global emissions in economies representing about two‑thirds of global GDP by 2024–2025.(worldbank.org) These are overwhelmingly applied to power and industrial production (steel, cement, chemicals, etc.), aligning with his claim about production and industry.

• The EU has significantly strengthened and broadened its Emissions Trading System (ETS): reforms under the Fit for 55 package extend ETS coverage and tighten caps, add a new ETS II for buildings, road transport and additional fuel‑using sectors, and phase in carbon pricing for maritime transport.(consilium.europa.eu) The EU is also introducing the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which effectively applies a carbon price on high‑emission imports such as cement, steel, electricity and fertilisers, directly internalising production externalities and raising the cost of high‑emission methods relative to cleaner technologies.(pwc.nl) Other jurisdictions are launching or expanding ETSs (e.g., China’s planned expansion of its ETS to steel, cement and aluminium, Vietnam’s new ETS for steel, cement and power, and Türkiye’s forthcoming national ETS), further supporting the global rollout he anticipated.(reuters.com) Revenues from these systems are increasingly earmarked for green investment, reinforcing the economic incentive to adopt low‑emission alternatives.(worldbank.org)

• In agriculture, progress is slower and politically contentious but moving in the predicted direction of using explicit pricing: Denmark has agreed the world’s first direct carbon tax on livestock emissions, to start in 2030 and rise by 2035, explicitly intended to cut agricultural GHGs and fund a green transition in the sector.(reuters.com) New Zealand, after initially preparing to price agricultural emissions via its ETS, removed agriculture from the scheme in 2024 but still plans a separate farm‑level pricing system by 2030, indicating not a rejection of the idea but a change in design and timing.(environment.govt.nz) Meanwhile, carbon pricing on fertiliser and other inputs via CBAM will effectively raise the cost of more carbon‑intensive agricultural inputs within the EU.(agriland.ie)

Taken together, these developments show that since the prediction in July 2022, governments have indeed been increasingly rolling out cap‑and‑trade and tax‑based systems to price negative externalities across production and industry, with early but real movement into agriculture. The mechanisms function as he described: they make high‑emission options more expensive and use revenues and complementary policies to support lower‑emission technologies. Although the long‑term end state is not yet reached and politics remain contentious, the trajectory so far closely matches the forecast, so the prediction is best classified as right.