Hot, and self absorbed debate in Washington about the "Cap and Trade" scheme proposed by Obama, which duplicates a system set up a long time ago in the European Union (with a carbon market exchange localized in Paris). That later system worked in reverse for quite a few years (not an intended effect), as the crafty polluters claimed to be polluting even more than they were, so as to get more credits, that they then made money from, while polluting even more in all legality. (We can fully expect American polluters to be just as crafty, a point that no doubt escaped the Obama adminstration... since it is following European errors step by step, so far. Sometimes apparent naivety's inner voice is greed, of course.)
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In a strange fit of blessed naivety, Paul Krugman in his blog (June 3, 2009) opines that:"The only chance we have of a global agreement [on carbon emissions] is if the United States moves first; it will quickly be followed by other advanced countries, and then we sit down and use a combination of carrots and the threat of big sticks to get developing countries into the fold."
It's amusing how Americans can get to preach to others what they have been begged to do for decades by those exact same others. But what to do when the ignorant child gives the lesson to his mom she has been trying to teach him since ever? Smile and listen seriously?
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France uses less than one-third of CO2 emission per unit of GDP that the USA uses. It may be an Anglo-Saxon free market capitalism thing: Australia, or Canada pollute just as much as the USA. (OK, some will say these are big countries, the giant CO2 orgy comes from that; but that does not resist examination: most of the transportation in these countries would be made tremendously more efficient by using European technology, and, by the way, Europe is just as big...)
All the talk about a commitment from “China” and “India” is putting the cart before the horse. China and India are trying to catch up technologically, and need to sell their wares, so they have been forced to raise their efficiency, just to follow the European Union (China duplicates the car CO2 emission of the EU, for example).
A lot of China is just delocalized industry of the USA, anyway; the products are sold in the USA, and a carbon tax would whip them into shape overnight.
So it’s all in the court of the USA.
The Obama administration has so far followed the easy way out, printing money it does not have, using China to foster its strange masochistic addiction to its own plutocracy. China does not mind: it views the USA as its greatest threat, and is quite happy to help in its deindustrialization every day.
The carbon tax is a radical way out. France has been mulling going for it alone (it would tax all products according to carbon content, including IMPORTS). “Cap and Trade” (another French idea enacted in the EU with extreme difficulty and adverse effects) is, at this point, just a delaying tactic. (Although it should turn worthy in the fullness of time.)
Silly? Well, France imposed a unilateral tax on air travel to pay for treatment of children for HIV. It was an idea of Chirac. Now 17 countries have adopted this tax, and most of treatment of children with HIV, worldwide, is paid by it.
Free market capitalism is a path to prosperity, but each of the words “free”, “market” and “capitalism” have to be defined by soul and smarts first.
If the USA were serious, the USA would go for a carbon tax. Right now.
PA
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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