Buying a Hummer just became 19,000 euros ($28,000) more expensive in the Netherlands.
A new "guzzle tax" came into force on Friday, penalizing cars that exceed a limit on emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide as the Netherlands seeks to reduce its contribution to global warming.
Ambitious plans to meet up to a third of Britain’s energy needs from offshore wind farms are in jeopardy because the Ministry of Defence objects that the turbines interfere with its radar.
The MoD has lodged last-minute objections to at least four onshore wind farms in the line of sight of its stations on the east coast because they make it impossible to spot aircraft, The Times has learnt. The same objections are likely to apply to wind turbines in the North Sea, part of the massive renewable energy project announced by John Hutton, the Energy Secretary, barely two months ago.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong has committed the Federal Government to setting a target for a medium-term cut in greenhouse gas emissions, rejecting advice from its climate adviser that it should be left to market forces.
Speaking from the US-sponsored major economies meeting in Hawaii on climate change, Senator Wong said it would set a 2020 greenhouse target regardless of the advice of economist Ross Garnaut.
A United Nations scheme to promote carbon-reducing power projects in poor countries has come under threat as Europe tightens the rules governing the trade in carbon permits in the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
Brussels has threatened to limit severely the trade in Certified Emission Reduction credits (CERs) after 2012 if the world fails to agree a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol and one that creates a wider market for carbon.
The latest US-led climate talks in Honolulu, Hawaii, have been described by delegates as the most frank and engaging climate negotiations so far.
It was the second in a series of Major Economies Meetings called by US President George W Bush.
Today the Financial Times reports on the poor performance of the Renewables Obligation in encouraging wind farms: "The amount of new wind capacity added in 2007 was less than three-quarters of that built the year before." This is despite subsidies that make wind farms massively profitable.
Simon Linnett's plan, written for the Social Market Foundation, for a global response to the threat of anthropogenic global warming (PDF) is entirely misconceived. At each stage it chooses the worst possible path forward from its analysis of the threat, to the manner of the response, to the scale at which it is organised.
President George W. Bush did not come out in favor of cap-and-trade legislation in his State of the Union address to Congress on Monday night, nor did he say whether the EPA would find that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health or welfare and therefore must be regulated under the Clean Air Act or whether Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne would decide to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The president did say that the U. S. should, “complete an international agreement that has the potential to slow, stop and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases.” He then added that, “This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride.”
The way I read this is that Bush is relying on China and India to save us from the stupid and colossally expensive policies that would be needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Hiding behind China and India will probably work, but it would be much better for the U. S., as the world’s leading developing economy, to lead the developing countries against the policies of economic decline being pushed by the European Union. The Bush Administration should be making the moral case against putting the world on an energy starvation diet.
The Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dale Hall, testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Wednesday on the proposed listing of the polar bear under ESA. The rumors from the Interior Department are that Hall, Secretary Kempthorne, and Under Secretary Lynn Scarlett are pushing for the listing against the scientific evidence presented by FWS field biologists. The ESA requires that a listing be based on the “best available scientific data”. Since most of the Arctic’s 19 bear populations have been increasing, the data suggests that the bear is not threatened. But computer models suggest that global warming will threaten the bear in the future. To my mind, computer models do not provide the best available scientific data. In fact, their speculative conclusions do not meet the minimal demands of the Federal Data Quality Act.
Although Hall may be pushing for the listing, he made some sensible comments at the hearing. He said that listing under the ESA will do little more to protect the polar bear than is already being done under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. And he said that he didn’t think using the ESA was the right regulatory tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. So perhaps the decision hasn’t yet been made to list the bear. As always, the most sensible remarks at the hearing were made by Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee’s ranking Republican.
C. Boyden Gray, the U.S. Envoy to the European Union, said Tuesday (Jan. 28) that U.S. and EU adoption of carbon “offset” taxes (aka carbon tariffs) is “inevitable” if China, India, and other developing countries refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions.
Gray spoke to European-based reporters in a telephone news conference. As reported by Joe Kirwin of BNA (Bureau of National Affairs, Inc.), Gray said the United States and the EU would “have no choice” but to impose carbon tariffs on products from developing countries to remain competitive in the global economy. To illustrate, he cited the import penalty provisions of S. 2191, the climate bill introduced by Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.).
Such talk can only encourage European countries, which are considering a carbon tariff proposal put forward by the European Commission, to restrict trade and impede development in poor countries.
It is unclear whether Mr. Gray was speaking for the Bush Administration or just giving his own opinion. Only two weeks ago (January 17), U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab warned that “attempting to force others to act on climate change through trade saber-rattling carries enormous risks.” She characterized measures like Lieberman-Warner as “threats to the global trading system—a system that has delivered prosperity to billions around the world.”
The United States—for very good reasons—declined to ratify the Kyoto treaty. U.S. officials can’t go around calling for carbon tariffs on products from China and India without building a case for the EU and Japan to slap carbon penalties on U.S.-made goods.
Two things have become painfully obvious. First, Kyoto cannot actually reduce global emissions—much less stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels—unless China, India, and other key developing countries also limit their emissions. Second, the developing country exemption creates strong incentives for energy-intensive industry, jobs, and carbon emissions to migrate from carbon-constrained countries to China, India, and other emerging industrial powerhouses.
Much of the power of the Web lies in speed and reach. But those same properties are the source of its greatest failing as well: the tendency to spread faulty assertions instantly and widely. Maybe it’s time for a “slow blog” movement, just as there’s now a slow food movement — and even a slow life movement, as described in The Times this week.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org