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U.S. may face boycott over carbon emissions says British economist
November 22nd, 2010
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)
The United States may face a global boycott if it fails to reduce its carbon emissions, warns British economist Nicholas Stern. International leaders are expected to gather in Cancun, Mexico for a U.N. climate change conference, and this item is expected to be of major importance.
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "The U.S. will increasingly see the risks of being left behind, and 10 years from now they would have to start worrying about being shut out of markets because their production is dirty," Stern says.
Stern is a member of a high-level advisory group that recently issued a report to the U.N. stating bank financing, carbon permit auctions, and new carbon and transportation taxes are necessary to raise enough money, $100 billion a year by 2020 to effectively reduce emissions and mitigate the damages climate change will have on developing nations.
"A modest price on emissions, in the range of $20-25 per ton of CO2 would push incentives in the right direction and raise substantial revenues," Stern told newspaper reporters.
Climate legislation has been put on the back burner in the U.S. after a failed attempt this summer to pass a bill that would cap greenhouse gases. The bill faced staunch opposition from many Republican senators. With the latest GOP victories in November's elections, there is little chance that measures addressing climate change will succeed in the next two years, although many states are moving forward with their own agendas.
According to Bloomberg, at a press conference on Wednesday, the Obama administration's climate negotiator Todd Stern said that despite his doubts about there being any "enormous leaps forward" in Cancun, he still thinks "real and concrete steps" are possible.