Uh-oh.  Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana) is raising the stakes on a U.S. climate bill by endorsing the idea of some sort of tariff on goods from countries that haven’t taken steps to suppress fossil fuel use.  According to Reuters, Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, yesterday said:

“We must push our trading partners to do their part to curb harmful emissions and we must devise a border measure, consistent with our international obligations, to prevent the carbon leakage that would occur…

Read the full story

Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation at the UN climate talks in Barcelona, says China should cut its CO2 emissions 50% by 2050.

Reuters reports:

BARCELONA, Spain, Nov 5 (Reuters) - China should roughly halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to keep the world on a safe climate path, the head of the U.S. delegation at U.N. climate talks in Barcelona said on Thursday.

Leading industrialised countries say that the world must halve greenhouse gases by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of…

Read the full story

Leading trade lawyer Gary Horlick testified yesterday on carbon tariffs before the Senate Finance Committee.  As the Senate prepares an energy suppression/global warming bill, it is attempting to find ways to soften the “border adjustment” provisions in the House-passed bill (H.R. 2454).

Horlick points out some of the practical problems of setting up a carbon tariff system and cautions about the potential effects of such measures on the international trading system.  As he notes, if the production method rather than the end-product…

Read the full story

In today’s Washington Examiner, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran an ad where its President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue warns that the Waxman-Markey climate change bill “would put U.S. businesses at a disadvantage, would violate our international trade obligations and could incite a devastating trade war that would cripple American exporters.”

The cap-and-trade system–together with the carbon tariffs and border adjustments suggested in the bill–will be harmful for U.S. businesses, and as Donohue points out, “would not be a good…

Read the full story

At the Bonn, Germany, UN meetings on global warming issues, India urged rich countries not to use “green” protectionism by imposing carbon tariffs on carbon-intensive products from poor countries.  India’s special envoy to the talks, Shyam Saran, was quoted as saying:

“That is simply not acceptable, that is protectionism.”

“We should be very careful that we don’t start going in that direction. We welcome any kind of arrangement … where there can be a sharing of experience or best practices for any of…

Read the full story

Today the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal takes a hard look at some of the negative economic consequences of touted cap-and-trade programs to reduce CO2 emissions and the possibility of carbon tariffs to protect U.S. businesses.  Not only would such programs cost “heavy-industry” jobs already suffering in the global recession but also could lead to trade wars as developing countries retaliate:

So in addition to all the other economic harm, a cap-and-trade tax will make foreign companies more competitive…

Read the full story

Yesterday Ranking Members of both two House committees and two subcommittees wrote to the new U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and asked him to clarify the Administration’s position on the issue of carbon tariffs.  The letter was sparked by recent remarks of Energy Secretary Steven Chu that the U.S. was considering levying tariffs against countries that haven’t taken steps to reduce carbon emissions.

In their letter Congressmen Joe Barton, Ralph Hall, Greg Walden, and Paul Brown cautioned:

Any emissions-related trade policy will…

Read the full story