China Opposes US Plans to Levy Carbon Tax on Imported Goods

With fears of being pressurized to agree to mandatory emissions cuts under the new climate treaty, China has up the ante and is looking to hit back at the developed countries by holding them accountable for a size-able portion of its carbon emissions. According to a recent study, 15 to 25 percent of China’s carbon emissions originate from manufacturing of goods exported to developed countries.

The Director of China’s Climate Change department, Gao Li,  has said that since the western countries are these final users of the carbon intensive products they should share the responsibility for the same with the Chinese government. Mr. Li also said that sharing equal responsibility was essential to reach any fair agreement over reducing the carbon emissions.

These statements came almost a week after a carbon tax bill was introduced in the US Congresswhich called for levying an ‘carbon equivalency fee’ on imported products, in addition to the nationwide carbon tax in order to neutralize the losses incurred by domestic manufacturers. The bill, if passed, would also allow the US government to withhold revenue generated from the equivalence fee till the time the producer nation agrees to a domestic carbon tax of its own. 

US to Have a National Climate Registry; Will India & China Follow?

Environment Protection Agency has announced that the US government would maintain a registry of all carbon emissions produced from some 13,000 high polluting industries. Companies emitting more than 25,000 metric tonnes of carbon emissions yearly will be required to report to this registry.

The plan to have a climate registry has been doing the rounds since 2007 and although a Climate Registry exists covering various American, Canadian and Mexican states, this would be much broader and mandatory in nature. Terming the decision as ‘critical step towards protection of health and environment’, the  that emissions data is essential in order to tackle the problem of climate change. The registry would require the companies to report their methane emissions also, another major greenhouse gas. 

United States is not bound by any international treaty to maintain a national climate registry unlike the Annex 1 countries under the Kyoto Protocol. Under the Kyoto Protocol, the developed nations (which ratified the treaty) were mandated to create and maintain an annual climate registry so as to monitor any increase or decrease in the carbon emissions and to determine, on the basis of tonnes of emissions, the number of emission allowances and carbon credits the countries (or the companies) are entitled to. The United States is a signatory to the treaty but has not ratified the same.

Al Gore Hopes Obama’s Radical Measures Would Bring the World Closer to Climate Deal

Al Gore in a scene from his documentary An Inconvenient Truth

Speaking at the International Climate Change Congress, the former US Vice President and imminent environmental activist Al Gore expressed hope that a broad consensus on a new and ground-breaking climate deal would be reached soon. Al Gore pointed out the new steps initiated by the current US President Barack Obama, to promote renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions, as one of the main reasons for an emerging possibility of successful negotiations for a new climate deal. 

President Obama has been quite aggressive in breaking away from the policies of his predecessor, President George W. Bush. His administration has answered to the critics of United States’ climate policy (or the lack of it!). No doubt the confidence among the environmental activists, like Gore, is high given the revolutionary measures announced by President Obama. 

The European Union has been eagerly waiting for some kind of cap and trade scheme from the United States so that the much needed credit to finance the technology transfer from developed nations to poor nations could obtained. 

The European Union is also looking at the United States to pass a carbon tax bill which eventually could form the foundations of a global carbon tax effective enough to replace the current Clean Development Mechanism of offsetting carbon emissions. A national carbon tax in the United States would put pressure on rest of the world and especially the advanced developing countries like India and China to agree to a global carbon tax, and possibly mandatory emission reduction targets. 

The Obama administration has also pledged billions of dollars of investments in renewable energy in the form of direct infrastructure spending in building wind farms and solar power plants, tax rebates to families who wish to install solar panels and in research & development of new and affordable forms of renewable energy. 

The steps taken by the United States may very trigger steps from the European Union to adopt stricter carbon emission reduction targets potentially laying foundations of long-term targets. 

For the first time in almost a decade the United States has acknowledged its responsibility as being the one of the largest polluters in the world. India and China have long accused United States of being negligent towards its duty to act decisively on critical environmental issues. Now that the times have changed the pressure to act is now on the developing nations.

Image: Juampe López (Creative Commons)

EU Wants US to Take Bold Actions on Climate Policy to Put Pressure on India, China

President Obama during his inagural address to the Congress

The European Union wants President Obama to act on his promise of introducing a new climate change policy and work out the modalities of a cap-and-trade policy before the Copenhagen Talks in December. Doing so, EU ministers say, would send a clear signal to the world and especially the developing countries about the change in America’s environment policy.

The European Union already has clear renewable energy and carbon emissions reduction policy in place but that has yet to make any difference in the stance of the developing countries like India and China. The Asian neighbors continue to resist any demands to reduce their carbon emissions claiming that their contribution to the overall global carbon emissions is very less as compared to that of the developed nations especially the United States which has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

In these circumstances, the EU fears that, the Copenhagen talks aimed at reaching a broad consensus regarding the next set of targets and participants to those emission reduction goals is could see a fate similar to the WTO talks held at Doha, Qatar.

Europe Plans $200 Billion Climate Tax on Developed Nations

With eyes on the Copenhagen talks for discussion on the next climate policy, the European Union plans to propose a tax on the carbon emissions of the developed nations, a move which could generate more than $200 billion by 2020. These funds will be used in helping developing and poor nations move from fossils fuels based energy systems to those based on renewable sources.

The European Union proposes that carbon offsetting through the trade of carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism be phased out and replaced by a scheme under which the developed nations would commit to cut their but would also pay taxes for extra emissions. The proposal also calls for a similar scheme for the ‘advanced developing nations’ like India and China but fails to clarify its nature.

Carbon offsetting cannot be pursued as a long term solution to mitigate the global carbon emissions and thus the Clean Development Mechanism should be seen only as a transformational step and not the solution to the problem. Replacing carbon offsetting with binding emission reductions seems to be the obvious next step but one has to ask if the world can afford a climate tax at this time of economic meltdown.

UN Plans to Introduce New Carbon Offsetting Scheme For Saving Rain Forests

The United Nations plans to introduce a new market-based emissions trading scheme which would allow developed nations to buy credits from countries having vast stretches of rain forests. The UN hopes that the new scheme would help reduce deforestation and restore the depleting resource of rain forests.

Called the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, REDD, the emission permits would be traded in a way similar to the Certified Emission Reduction permits. The REDD permits would help raise funds for restoring the fast depleting rain forests in the African, South American and South East Asian countries and in return the developed nations would be able to achieve the set emissions reduction goals. The UN plans to include this scheme in the next climate treaty which would follow the Kyoto Protocol.

But there are several problems with the basic model of the REDD emissions credits which would work principally in the same manner as the Kyoto carbon credits scheme. UN administrators have themselves admitted that the current carbon emissions trading mechanism should be made more transparent and effective. In addition, global banking giants have also slammed the Clean Development Mechanism saying that it is plagued by unnecessary delays and bureaucratic hurdles.