US & Australia Rejecting Even Carbon Trading Plans - Reuters

[hatrack]

Australia's six state governments and environmental economists said Australia and the United States needed to introduce carbon trading, where polluting industries switching to cleaner technology can sell left-over emissions allocations. They said national trading schemes would act as a financial incentive for industry to invest in new, cleaner technology.

"An on-going incentive, such as an emissions-trading scheme that would reward companies that invested in emission reductions, is needed to spread such technology throughout the industry," said the environment minister for Victoria state, John Thwaites.

But Australia and the United States, which have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gases, remain opposed to binding limits on emissions and have refused to set up national trading schemes, similar to one in place across Europe. Washington said carbon trading would simply move industries and emissions from one country to another.

"If you impose a trade on CO2 (carbon dioxide), you're really pushing energy-intensive manufacturing out of our country to another country, where the greenhouse gases still go up into the atmosphere," James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told Reuters. "So we have to be careful about a good tool, applied in the wrong setting," he said.

EDIT

And the right setting would be . . . John? Funny thing, this stance, given their unbounded faith in markets to solve each and every other problem of human existence.

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34449/story.htm

[Burning Water]

1. I don't know why

we would expect them to. They rejected Kyoto, so why would they push it through the back door?? I mean, it's not just the name they object to, but rightly or wrongly, the policies.

[maxsolomon]

2. only a Democratic congress, senate & presidency

would be willing to tackle this issue. republicans would sacrifice their first born child before they'd admit global warming is real.

even a real climate catastrophe - say the Ross Ice shelf collapsing & raising sea levels enough to drown Tuvalu - will not be enough to snap them out of it.

in other words, the earth is fucked.

[rfkrfk]

3. this is a state issue, is there something wrong with Aus. states?

in that they are not following the lead of US states
in limiting their greenhouse gas inventory?

this is a state issue, ferals ---> butt out

Go States

[philb]

4. But lots of cities in U.S. have signed th Kyoto protocol, so portions

of the U.S. are participating. There may even be a state or two that has signed on.

[brokensymmetry]

5. There's a new near-zero carbon emissions plant being planned.

It should be producing electricity by 2020 or so - it's a prototype.

So, see, there's no need to worry about reducing carbon emissions in the meantime. :sarcasm: