We'll Always Have Paris

Meeting of major economies ends with little progress

Posted at 2:42 PM on 18 Apr 2008

A U.S.-led gathering of major economies in Paris this week concluded, as previous meetings have done, with little progress. The 17 countries bashed President Bush's climate speech for a while, then argued about whether to set a goal of halving global greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. (Guess who's against it?) French president Nicolas Sarkozy made himself quoteworthy, saying that climate change would make Darfur "just one crisis among dozens of others" and urging international private investors to "massively redirect financial flows toward [a] new low-carbon economy." After vaguely agreeing that future deals should include sharing clean technologies and setting emissions goals for specific industries, delegates agreed to meet again in May and June. Meanwhile, G8 business chiefs met in Tokyo to spar about industry's role in tackling climate change, finally concluding that companies should not be "unduly penalized by unbalanced policy measures that would divert resources away from investments in innovation."

sources: Reuters, Associated Press, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse

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Comments: (3 comments)

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Bush Plan Fostering Alt.Energy!

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/218ff ...

Alternative energy companies and natural gas producers stand to profit from President Bush's decision to embrace a greenhouse gas emission cap, a Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst said Wednesday.
In a Rose Garden speech Wednesday afternoon, the president is expected to propose stopping the growth of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 and call for electricity generators to slow those emissions within 10 to 15 years.
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst Kevin Book in a client note said the White House move "could lead to a positive market response for names levered to clean power generation (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.), hybrid vehicles components, and U.S. natural gas extraction."

You see Grist...which would you rather have: a few measley millions in "government funding" -- or, a policy that injects TRILLIONS of investor dollars into next generation CO2-free technology.

The answer is clear: Bush Fights Global Warming.

by jabailo at 6:11 PM on 18 Apr 2008

Cap n Trade = Business As Usual

I am not convinced that anything at all would be accomplished by a cap and trade system. Perhaps if everyone involved had Earth conscious, altruistic goals as their motivation it could work. But that isn't the case, is it?

If we institute a global cap and trade system and cap CO2 emissions at the levels they are today worldwide what have we accomplished? Carbon Dioxide levels are already way too high and increasing rapidly at this level of emissions.

In an economic sense it will be great for 3rd world countries who can sell their carbon credits to the U.S. and other developed countries but for those developed countries it is just a free pass to do business as usual for the foreseeable future.

Large, multinational companies can establish subsidiaries all over the world and thereby have carbon credits from each one to trade with themselves in order to continue and potentially even increase their carbon emissions in their main facilities without paying any penalty as a result.

It is just going to turn into one more, feel good, economic whitewash. Yeah it looks good on paper from one perspective but from another perspective the system could easily be manipulated for profit with zero gains in the areas it is supposed to be addressing. When are we ever going to learn?

Mike Johnston

by enki at 6:32 AM on 19 Apr 2008

The Only Plan

That will work is the one that has a company pay for the effects of it's products. They are a little difficult to figure out, but not impossible. We are new to looking at products and services in this manner, as corn ethanol has taught us, but if we can look beneath the surface of a distant planet I think we can work this out. It may not be pleasant for companies right now and it may have an effect on the economy but our goods and services needs aren't going to go away so the business that can fastest get itself into shape, be it new or old, will be the winner. The wealth is not going to disappear, it will just shift around a bit. The companies lobbying against this, I suspect they are too set in their ways to change, too confident to believe they their efforts to stop it won't work, and too afraid to lose the wealth. A corporation that refuses to change with the times is not doing it's shareholders any service at all, isn't that the mandate?

by morganmghee at 11:50 AM on 19 Apr 2008

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