What do you think of Europeans demanding more from American on carbon regulation?
The Waxman Markey carbon cap and trade bill passed the House of Reporesentatives by a fairly slim margin (219-212) and will have a difficult road through the Senate. Yet many European nations are already demanding more action from America.
Andreas Carlgren, the Swedish minister for the environment, told journalists on Friday in Brussels that passage of the Waxman-Markey bill would be significant, but added that American emissions reduction targets still risked falling far short of what would be needed to reach a global deal at United Nations negotiations in December in Copenhagen.
"We expect more, we demand more," he said of the European position toward wealthy countries - including the United States - and emissions reduction. "We need the right global targets and objectives for the long term in line with science," he said, adding that such targets were needed to apply "the right pressure to make sure we have sufficient emissions reductions," he said. http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0...
European countries have already established more stringent goals in reducing CO2 emissions and expect the USA to follow suit. Yet we haven't even been able to pass any carbon regulation legislation yet. What are your thoughts?
Best Answer
-The US definitely has a lot of room for improvement with regard to heavy emitting industries. The energy efficiency of the US infrastructure is much lower. The amount of GDP per unit of GHG emissions in the US is half of the EU and not even 1/3 of Sweden. Do not even think about comparing on a per capita basis Sweden and Texas.
- The US has moreover much cheaper options to abate emissions (see Mc Kinsey studies etc.) due to its large potential for renewable resources
- The US has over 2x the amount of emissions per capita of most western European countries for a GDP per capita no longer higher.
- The US does no longer have a large heavy industry sector. The heavy industry sector is dominated by European, Japanese, Indian and Chinese companies: Cement - Steel - Glass - Chemicals.
For the aluminium sector, companies relocate anyway where cheap electricity is to be found and regardless of the climate effort, it is neither in Europe, nor in the US or China.
Many studies on the "so called" carbon leakage and relocation have been published. A good one for the US is from the Pew Center: http://www.pewclimate.org/international/...
International distortions can be avoided through "sectoral agreements", but how would republicans even know about them if they reject any policy instrument to regulate emissions?
Like it or not, the development in most developing countries is done by imitating the US and this includes unsustainable oversized infrastructures. Like it or not the US is a trendsetter and even if its development pattern is not sustainable, it will spread around the world. It is there that "leading by example" is so important.
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