Oh NOOOOOOO! "Danger To Free Trade Seen In Climate Talks" - NYT

[hatrack]

Could a legacy of the Copenhagen climate conference turn out to be higher tariffs?

With little prospect of an agreement at the talks this week bringing immediate and binding emissions limits on the developing world, pressures are mounting in Europe and the United States to impose restrictions, called border adjustments, on imports from low-cost producers like China and India that are resisting cutting greenhouse gases.

“The shadow of border adjustments hangs over these talks,” said David G. Victor, a professor of international relations and an expert in environmental issues at the University of California at San Diego. “Unions and heavy industry are deeply worried about climate policies that could make them less competitive, especially with the Chinese, and nothing in Copenhagen will change that fact.”

The prospect that climate policy could become entangled in trade issues has been looming for years. The United States refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that it gives manufacturers in nations like China and India an unfair advantage because they do not face restrictions on their emissions under that treaty. More recently, organized labor in the United States has demanded keeping border adjustments as part of their support for the Obama administration on passing climate legislation, leading some commentators to warn that plans to cap and trade greenhouse gases will trigger what they have described as a “green trade war.”

EDIT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/earth/15tariffs.html?_r=1

[marmar]

1. Screw the survival of the planet.....COMMERCE MIGHT BE IMPACTED!!!

Of course, there will be nothing to trade when everyone's dead.

[kestrel91316]

2. The REAL reason why the US and China will never do a damned thing about

CO2. I wonder how that whole commerce thing is gonna work out for them when society collapses?

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Priorities…

[silverweb]

4. Good!

Now let's try replacing so-called "free trade" (which isn't) with something like sustainable fair trade.

[joshcryer]

5. This is precisely why averting dramatic climate change is impossible.

GG was right but from a purely different POV.