India Weighs in on Cap and Trade to Sec. of State Clinton
One sixth of the world’s population have spoken:
July 20 (Bloomberg)—India won’t bend to demands from the Obama administration or threats from the U.S. Congress to adopt legally binding caps on its carbon emissions, the country’s environment minister told visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday.
“There is simply no case for the pressure” the U.S. is exerting, considering India produces among the lowest per capita emissions in the world, Minister Jairam Ramesh told Clinton during an unexpected discussion of climate negotiations during an event intended to showcase U.S.-Indian cooperation on clean energy at a “green” office building outside New Delhi.
“As if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours,” Ramesh said, referring to a climate-change bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 26 that imposes tariffs on exports from countries that refuse to adopt greenhouse gas controls by 2020.
If we fail to curb the growth in emissions by China and India that make up almost half the world population and have by far the fastest growth rates, what good does destroying our economy by making energy prohibitively expensive do?
What is interesting is the other part of the conversation:
The U.S. and European countries must offer financial incentives and equitable reductions in carbon emissions to ensure any deal won’t hinder growth, food security and poverty alleviation in developing nations such as India, China and Brazil, Ramesh said.
So not only do we have to penalize our population with higher energy prices and prices on goods, plus less competitive goods abroad because we have to compete with countries that are not capped, but we also have to provide massive transfer payments to these countries to bribe them into token efforts to cut their own emissions.
