As I highlighted with the link above, Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, like me, sees only two alternatives to simply ignoring the problem of climate change:

i) global agreements

or

ii) tarriffs on those who do not do their part

There is of course a third option – allowing domestic industries in reponsible countries to suffer, but that is even more unthinkable than tarriffs.

The New Economics Foundation produced a report a few years back entitled Free Riding on the Climate: The possibility of legal, economic and trade restrictive measures to tackle inaction on global warming. It was essentially an argument for exactly the kind of tarriffs I’m talking about.

Now what is most interesting is that when NEF wrote the report they extracted an admission from Pascal Lamy (then at the European Commission, now Director-General of the WTO) that the EU would be within its rights to pursue that course of action…

Also, as this article highlights, tarriffs that “levy punitive tariffs on greenhouse-gas-intensive products imported from countries that lack “comparable action” to that of the US, starting in 2020″ are contained in the central piece of global warming legislation now before the US Congress, which would of course also impose emission controls on US industries. Industrial lobbies and labor unions are pushing hard for these sanctions to take effect more quickly.

From the same article:

“European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and industrial chambers of commerce strongly advocate a similar tariff system, leading many analysts to predict that the EU will also adopt some sort of green tariff system in the next few years.”

Of course the key benefit is that the country or countries taking a lead gets a headstart in developing the carbon economy, technologies and lifestyles that the rest of the world will be moving towards. Always assuming that humanity does actually adapt to its global circumstances of course, and not just keep ploughing on until we hit the wall.

Wouldn’t the WTO have something to say about this?

They’ve spent the last 30 years dismantling these sort of planning mechanisms across the developing world..

PL wrote: “and kill WTO”

innit

We should also define an import/co2 tax for the “embodied energy in the goods we import” … and kill WTO. But as well a CO2 tax/head/km to the airliners/ship/public transporter as well as for all the useless, non recycled and CO2 heavy packaging that we buy everyday.

Thanks for your comments. I’m the TEQs Development Director at the Lean Economy Connection, and we certainly do acknowledge the issue of embodied energy, which is discussed in our booklet Energy and the Common Purpose (downloadable here: http://tinyurl.com/2rqwz2).

As you say, for simplicity’s sake it makes sense to only require the surrender of TEQs units for fuel and energy purchases, but this does not mean that embodied energy is not included.

If, for example, you want to buy a table, then the company who made that table would have to buy TEQs units to cover the energy involved in the manufacture. This would come out of the national TEQs budget, and the company would pass on the cost to the end consumer via the cash price of the table.

This accounts for domestic embodied emissions, but I think your point was more about imported embodied emissions. TEQs is explicitly a national scheme as common purpose is dependent on collective motivation on a scale in which individual effort is seen as being significant.

This means that TEQs alone is not sufficient to address emissions globally, and needs to exist within a global framework such as Contraction and Convergence.

Ideally, there would be a TEQs scheme in each nation, which would mean that embodied emissions would always be accounted for within a robust national budget, but given that TEQs will certainly be implemented by some nations before others, yiu are right to say that import tarriffs will be necessary to ensure that domestic producers are not disadvantaged. This was regarded as politically unthinkable until recently, but no longer: http://tinyurl.com/2spdvg

Incidentally, I couldn’t agree more with your criticism of the inadequate Kyoto and EU ETS systems, which are simply failing to address the problems we face in any relaistic way. I have recently been speaking on this very topic.

I hope you are reassured that we have considered these issues, and if you have further comments to make please do come and join the conversation in our TEQs forum, which can be found at http://www.teqs.net

All the best.

“TEQs (Tradable Energy Quotas) would reduce our reliance on fossil fuels fast, guarantee that we meet our agreed emissions obligations and empower communities to address the challenges of our times, allowing us to move into a happier, thriving future.”

I have a problem with the word ‘guarantee’. There are obvious merits in the simplicity of limiting the use of TEQs to energy transactions but this leaves a large, and growing omission, related to the embodied energy in the goods we buy. A recent paper by Dieter Helm and others (http://www.dieterhelm.co.uk/publications/Carbon_record_2007.pdf) suggests that, the deficiencies in the UNFCCC methodology used to measure our emissions under Kyoto mean that emissions equivalent to 50% of our actual smokestack/tailpipe emissions nationally go unmeasured. The bulk of these are due to the embodied energy in the goods we import (after crediting exports) – and this deficit is growing. Two years ago the NHS thought that its CO2 emissions were around 3.7mte/year because it only measured its building energy use. Now it measures its transport and procurement activities this figure has risen to 18mte/year (http://www.sdu.nhs.uk/get_involved/carbon_reduction_feedback.php).

As currently proposed, TEQs are not a sufficient method for controlling emissions. We will either have to extend the application of them or introduce emission related taxes on the embodied energy in goods and services. The first step is to start acknowledging that this is a real issue.

Ian Smith

It is believed that developing countries, specially in Africa should wake up. They should for once take the lead because they will be the hardest hit. Beside, they do claim in their “NEPAD” creation that they can resolve themselves their own problems.

Drastic measure are required for ensuring drastic changes of mentality. It is believed that the present increase in fuel price is causing some changes but not up to the point of switching politically and on a large scale to renewable energy and public transport.

We can not leave the market to decide because the latter is regulated by the very short term law of supply and demand.

Why not increasing artificially the oil price (except the kerosene for the poor) at national level and use the benefit to research, develop and launch alternative and clean sources of energy (CSE).

This should evidently be accompanied by relevant policies, which would finish with fossil fuel monopoly, ration its consumption, facilitate the spread of CSE and cushion the eventual short effect on the poor. But this should not be too hight has the real poor are not depending much on oil in Africa.

That would be the bold political decision, which I believe, the situation requires. Besides this would no longer be a lip service to global warming.

In the other hand, it is not certain that African countries could gather enough independence, commitment, strength and political will to take the lead. But the EU has shown that it has what is needed to lead the way.

PL Lemercier
Renewable Energy Centre
Port Elizabeth
South Africa

More here http://another-green-world.blogspot.com/2008/06/dr-david-fleming-presents-energy-and.html

More incentive would be a great idea, I think; and energy rates are likely easier to alter than tax programs are to pass and monitor-

He concludes that the choice is not between tradable and non-tradable rations, but rather between legal or illegal trading in rations.

Sharon Astyk also wrote an insightful piece on the subject last year: http://tinyurl.com/69377k

Currently, big users pay much less per unit than small ones. The reasons for that have mostly to do with establishing distribution and delivery- and it does not have to be that way any more.

This could also avoid the problem just discussed; the tendency for people to cheat on or circumvent rationing. Basically, everyone would pay a pittance for the basic energy required to sustain life- and far far more for “excess” or luxury use. The electric meters already available can do this now. There are ways to cope with industrial needs, too-

More discussion here- forgive the somewhat wordy intro-

http://littlebloginthebigwoods.blogspot.com/2007/04/possibility.html