The World Bank sees money in emissions trading
On the lopsided negotiating position of the US at CoP-4:
The us position in the climate talks is an extension of the belief that the free market can solve the problem that the free market has created. The us is pushing hard to globalise emissions trading, because big industries, whose interest they want to protect, claim that free market in "pollution credits' is more successful than regulation ever would be. The us negotiators don't seem bothered about how this system has affected the average American, much less the environment.
On why the US emissions trading logic is flawed:
There are two major flaws in the emissions trading system in the us . Firstly, some studies reveal how the supposed emission reductions that are taking place in the us have happened because of an increase in the baseline (the reference point for reduction) before the so-called emission reductions were achieved. It is analogous to what happens in California, when there is a water shortage. As the situation gets dryer, everyone knows that they will soon have to reduce from their average consumption levels. So what happens is that everyone consumes more water, so that when they have to reduce, they reduce from an artificially inflated level of consumption. With regard to climate change, there is a shortage of what the atmosphere can absorb. But can we trust the wealthiest corporations and the government not to do what the average Californian would do in a water crisis?
Secondly, domestic emissions trading norms assume that you have a right to pollute, but not that you have a right to live without pollution. Why should the right for corporations to pollute be enshrined in international law in the form of legalised emissions trading?
On why the US is saying no to a limiting