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China blames importers for its greenhouse gas emissions
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Li Gao, China’s top climate negotiator said the China should not be required to reduce emissions caused by its manufacturing goods for export.
This is really a very profound statement on his part. China does everything it can to increase its export of manufactured goods. China keeps its cost of manufacturing as low as possible by every means possible including: low taxes, low wages, no mandates like health care costs, lax environment restrictions, low cost energy, and low cost raw materials.
It’s the low cost energy that causes the global warming problem. China burns very low quality coal to generate most of the electricity to run their manufacturing plants. It seems that since they export the goods to us, we have to take the responsibility for their global emissions. Oh really!
Actually I think that we should take responsibility for their emissions on the goods we buy. What we need is a carbon tax to apply to all manufactured goods and services, including imports. If a country can show that they don’t emit greenhouse gases for power then they don’t have to pay the tax. If goods are imported from countries that don’t control their emissions, then we can slap a carbon tax on their imports based on how much greenhouse gases are emitted by the country each year. A country with low emissions would pay a small tax while a country like China would get hit by a higher tax. That would lessen our imports and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. And they would then only have to take responsibility for the greenhouse gas emissions for the goods they produce and consume internally or the goods they import from other countries. They would also have an incentive to lower their greenhouse gas emissions so they could lower the carbon tax imposed on their exports.
Obama is proposing a cap and trade system to control greenhouse gas emissions. It won’t work unless we can get China to also comply with controls. If we only raise costs to manufacturers in this country, then more jobs will move to China to avoid the controls. A really bad cap and trade program would create incentives for US companies to shut down manufacturing here and move it overseas to profit from the cap and trade program itself.
A carbon tax would be more fair, easier to implement, and may actually generate jobs in this country if we can start developing renewable energy sources to lower the percentage of our power that comes from fossil fuels. The carbon tax can start off small. Just a few cents per gallon should be enought to provide a considerable amount of money for developing renewable energy resources and serve notice to countries like China that they will have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions if they want to continue to export to us.
