Via Greenwire (sub rqd), a new report from Canada-based investment bank CIBC shows that if the U.S. passes domestic carbon caps, and China doesn't, and the U.S. responds with "carbon tariffs," it could spark a return of manufacturing jobs:
The report finds that a carbon tariff, combined with triple-digit oil prices, "could reverse the migration of certain manufacturing industries that have left North America for much cheaper labour markets in China."
"Wage advantages may no longer be as decisive in determining overall competitiveness for energy-intensive industries in today's energy-starved world economy," the report finds. "All the more so if exports from those industries will be assessed relatively punitive tariffs for their carbon content upon entering North American or Western European markets."
[CIBC chief economist Jeff] Rubin, in an interview, was more succinct. "All of sudden," he said, "maybe you don't want your steel plant in China."
His report notes that other developing countries could also face disadvantages, but singles out China because of its growing energy use and reliance on coal in particular. Coal, the most carbon-heavy major energy source, provides about two-thirds of China's total energy needs and roughly 80 percent of its electric power, the report states. And export-related emissions account for 27 percent of China's total emissions, CIBC finds.
Rubin says industries that would take part in his predicted reverse migration would be energy-hungry sectors like chemicals, metal manufacturing, cement, glass and others. The report finds that if carbon were priced at $45 per ton in the United States, applying this cost to Chinese goods would raise about $55 billion per year from Chinese exports to the United States, the equivalent of a 17 percent tariff.
This would seem to invalidate a common conservative argument, doesn't it? That passing carbon policy without China's participation will put us at a competitive disadvantage?
Comments
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:22 pm
29 Mar 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 7:38 pm
29 Mar 2008
Never fear, cheaper, cleaner energy will create jobs and bring them back. A double job booster.
New jobs building out renewables and conservation. And cheaper solar furnace and wind power process energy for manufacturing. Plus better stuff to manufacture, all the devices that will be needed to power up renewably.
Everyone else will want these. Exports, positive trade balance, prospertiy, strong currency, debt and deficit paydown. It's all doable. A 10 cent per kwh GHG free energy subsidy would make it zoom ahead.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GreyFlcn Posted 2:38 am
30 Mar 2008
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheUSTradeDefici ...
http://www.marktaw.com/culture_and_media/TheUSTradeDefici ...
http://greyfalcon.net/canadadollar.png
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amazingdrx Posted 4:04 am
30 Mar 2008
If we start a real trade war it'll be one of the greatest, but this next one will be the greatest. Unlimited unregulated corporate globalization is a disaster, adding a huge global economic slide will only compund it.
Regulation without destruction is needed. Instead what do we get? Lipservice about regulation and enforcement of present regulation on mega financial trading "banks" and hedge fund scammers. Huge bailouts that weaken our currency and threaten all of our wages, assets, and savings.
Crony capitalsim touts "free" markets all day long, then relies on government bailouts when their free marketeering goes wrong. Then when we talk about regulation to prevent anothetr bubble? They blackmail us by threatening to take their(?, really assets stolen from us all) offshore.
Many of these financial VIPs would be easier to negotiate with if they were in a nice white collar country club prison. Look what it did for Martha's attitude. They might even agree to return some of the stolen assets if we offered stuff like extra soap or lime jello on fridays. Prisoners are grateful for small favors.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Pangolin Posted 6:37 am
30 Mar 2008
It just happens to be a nasty fact that people aren't very capable of doing without food and petroleum products (who knew?) and they will keep paying for them at the expense of other portions of their budget; like say, the mortgage. "Food" in the west means strange things like... hermetically sealed, shelf-stable, brown rice in single serving packets. Ten servings of which equal the cost of a 20 lb. sack of the same dry rice.
In the rest of the world the fact that thier monthly 100-lb sack of white rice will now take 2 months income to produce is going to present something of a political problem. Especially since the kerosene to cook that rice now costs a weeks income by itself. I predict a rash of political interruptions (food riots) in the normal course of factory work resulting in a shortage of spare parts in the US. Parts we can't make in the US since we shipped the machine tools to other lands where the hourly wage was equal to the cost of..... a bowl of rice here in the US.
More sand in the gears.
Here at home I've noticed "For Sale" signs are being replaced with "For Rent" signs with nary an occupant in sight. I'm having my doubts as to whether an actual "sale" has taken place or are other arrangements being made to cover the surplus of housing and prop prices up. I suspect the latter since there is a local 450 unit subdivision that sits completely bare and unnocupied with the exception of the sales office in the model units.
Of course some real estate is getting hard to get to as the roads, asphalt roads that is are made partially of oil and your local government likely decided some time ago that taxes were for the little people and they could just rely on real estate transfer taxes to pay for the roads. Oops.
So could somebody please show us how solar panel and wind turbine installation is going to replace all of those jobs in real estate, construction and finance that no longer exist? Charts and arrows please as numbers on paper challenge my US college educamated brain.
Put the Carbon Back
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