Saying no to unilateral concessions in Copenhagen
From the Boston Globe:
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The last best hope is that Obama advances a surprise climate initiative surge that goes beyond short-term politics. . .
It would also offer a global US climate policy package to developing nations, including China, India and Brazil, that would lead them to embrace more ambitious emission targets and green development. . . Among such solutions in a climate surge initiative are: - A green Tobin tax on very short-term speculative financial trades, which was proposed by George Soros at Copenhagen. Such a tax would raise hundreds of billions for investing in energy efficiency and green development projects in poor nations. . . [AO: Considerable scientific evidence support the conclusion that climate change is a real and ongoing problem. America must take steps to do its part to arrest this problem. Yet, there is little that America can do on its own to fix the problem without the participation of the international community. However, in our efforts to engage the international community on the issue of global warming, we must be careful not to take steps that later prove harmful to America. In that regard, the “Obama surge” the writer, Charles Derber, recommends may be an unnecessary action that could harm America if other countries do not follow suit. First, we cannot afford to commit to significant emissions reductions just because other countries demand we do so as Derber recommends. Also, we cannot afford to commit to significant carbon reductions as a means of encouraging developing countries like China, India and Brazil to follow suit. Those countries will not commit to significant emissions reductions simply as a way to copy America. Instead, they will do what they believe to be in their best interest which may or may not involve committing to significant emissions reductions. On the other hand, if a US commitment to significant emissions reductions is negotiated with other counties, including developing countries such as China, India and Brazil, we will be in a better position to use offers of significant emissions reductions to encourage other countries to do the same. There has been much talk about different mechanisms for generating revenue for funding green initiatives in developing countries. Here, Derber suggests using revenue from a Tobin tax on very short-term speculative financial trades for such a purpose. This may be a good idea. However, we must be cognizant that climate change is not our only immediate problem. America has a huge deficit that could be alleviated somewhat by revenues from such a tax. We also have millions of Americans who go without health insurance because we cannot “afford” national health insurance for all Americans. We must at least consider these other priorities as potential recipients of any revenue generated by a Tobin tax.] |
An Obama climate surge would mean offering at least a 30 percent US reduction in emissions by 2020 from the 1990 level, as part of a commitment to embrace real target emissions as demanded by the Africans and other nations who walked out of the talks earlier this week. Read the full opinion HERE.
