The E.U. created the world’s largest emissions trading market in 2005 to force heavy industries to cap their pollution levels. Next on the E.U. agenda: switching to 20 percent renewable energy and cutting greenhouse gases by 20 percent by the end of the next decade.
William Yeatman
Negotiations seeking a global pact to tackle global warming are troubled and could end in disastrous failure, China's top climate change envoy warned on Monday, saying rich countries are failing to deliver on promises.
According to Leila Abboud of the Wall Street Journal, greenhouse gas emissions have increased 15 % in Norway since the country enacted the world’s first carbon tax twenty years ago. That’s slightly less than the increase in the United States over the same period.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpWScO4-OH8 285 234]
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRXd4KLDxlM 285 234]
The slowing economy and financial crisis are testing Europe’s goal of becoming a world leader in greenhouse gas reduction.
The Senate passed the Wall Street bailout bill by a vote of 74 to 25 on Wednesday. Included in the Senate bill was the extension of tax credits for various types of renewable energy, including windmills and solar panels. The House voted on Friday in favor of the Senate bill by a 263 to 171 margin, after rejecting its own version on Monday by a 202 to 228 vote. The White House has indicated that President Bush will sign the bill into law as soon as possible. So the renewable energy industry can rest easy tonight in the knowledge that their taxpayer subsidies will not expire on January 1st.
MEPs will tomorrow (7 October) vote on key legislation designed to slash the EU's CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020. But the vote comes amidst a worsening economic crisis, with several member states indicating that they want to put the brakes on any rapid adoption of the measures.
Poor Thomas Friedman, he tries so hard. He wants to explain everything — energy, poverty, world climate catastrophes — and offer a comprehensive solution as well. The only problem he doesn't much know what he is talking about.
Last month National Review Online contributor Lawrence Kudlow proclaimed that this was the "energy election." After seeing the Veep debate, however, I must disagree with Kudlow’s assessment. The contest between Arizona Senator John McCain and Illinois Senator Barack Obama cannot possibly be "the energy election" because both candidates have the same crummy energy policies.
The similarity of the candidates' crappy energy plans was apparent last night during the vice presidential debate between Delaware Senator Joseph Biden and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. For one thing, the term “free market” was employed frequently by each candidate, but always as a pejorative. Accordingly, they both endorsed windfall profits taxes to punish “big oil,” and they both want the government to waste taxpayer money on dubious sources of renewable energy. Last but not least, while they differed on the causes of global warming, Biden and Palin championed energy rationing cap-and-trade schemes that would have the federal government seize the reigns of energy production in America.
So there's no choice. Both the Republicans and Democrats want statist energy policies that would increase energy costs and hurt the American economy.
RSS Updates 
RSS E-Mail Updates 
CEI.org