Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DDI 2008
Europe Trade DA
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Uniqueness.................................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Unique -EU-US Climate Relations............................................................................................................................................. 11
Unique -EU-US Climate Relations............................................................................................................................................. 12
Unique - Both Candidates Cap and Trade ..................................................................................................................................13
Unique - Both Candidates Cap and Trade...................................................................................................................................14
Unique - Both Candidates Cap and Trade...................................................................................................................................15
Unique - EU Expects US Climate Action................................................................................................................................... 16
Unique - EU Expects US Climate Action................................................................................................................................... 17
Unique - EU Expects US Climate Action................................................................................................................................... 18
Unique - EU Liberalizing Trade - Climate..................................................................................................................................19
Unique - EU Liberalizing Trade - Climate..................................................................................................................................20
Unique: AT: No Regulations ......................................................................................................................................................21
Unique: AT: Incentives Now...................................................................................................................................................... 22
Unique: AT: Incentives Now ..................................................................................................................................................... 23
Unique: AT: Incentives Now...................................................................................................................................................... 24
Unique - AT: BioFuel Subsides ................................................................................................................................................. 25
AT: Iraq killed US-EU trade....................................................................................................................................................... 26
Links............................................................................................................................................................................................27
Extension - Generic Link ........................................................................................................................................................... 28
Extension - general Links............................................................................................................................................................29
Extension - general Links............................................................................................................................................................30
Link-- environmental policy........................................................................................................................................................31
Link – environmental policy....................................................................................................................................................... 32
Link--environmental policy.........................................................................................................................................................33
Link --Incentives......................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Link -- Incentives........................................................................................................................................................................ 34
Link-- incentives......................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Link – incentives ........................................................................................................................................................................ 37
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Link - incentives..........................................................................................................................................................................38
Link Incentives............................................................................................................................................................................ 39
Link—Incentives......................................................................................................................................................................... 40
Link--Subsidies........................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Link—Domestic Policy...............................................................................................................................................................42
Link-must be 0 emissions............................................................................................................................................................43
Link—policy not Kyoto.............................................................................................................................................................. 44
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 45
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 46
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 47
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 49
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 50
Link – policy not Kyoto............................................................................................................................................................. 51
Link - technology....................................................................................................................................................................... 52
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 53
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 54
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 55
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 56
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 57
Internal Link - Voluntary Percieved As Shift From Cap............................................................................................................ 58
Internal Links - Carbon Tarrifs/Relations................................................................................................................................... 59
Carbon Tariffs = Trade War........................................................................................................................................................60
Carbon Tariffs= Trade War .......................................................................................................................................................61
Carbon Tariffs =Trade War ........................................................................................................................................................62
Trade Key to US-EU Relations .................................................................................................................................................. 63
Trade Key to US-Eu Relations ...................................................................................................................................................64
Trade Key to US-Eu Relations ...................................................................................................................................................65
Impacts ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 66
US-EU Free Trade - Extensions..................................................................................................................................................67
US-EU Trade Economy -Module ...............................................................................................................................................68
US-EU Trade Economy - Extensions .........................................................................................................................................69
US-EU Relations Democracy Module........................................................................................................................................ 70
US-EU Relations Democracy Extensions .................................................................................................................................. 71
US-EU Solves Iran Prolif Module.............................................................................................................................................. 72
US-EU Coop on Iran Prolif Now................................................................................................................................................ 73
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A. The EU is holding off on trade barriers because they believe the Us will increase c02 regulations
Stephen Boucher, Former Advisor on European Affairs for the Belgian Deputy PM - Prof. @ Science Po in Paris, 4/4/’8 [Clinton,
Obama, McCain - Europe’s Best Hope for Fighting Climate Change, http://www.notre-
europe.eu/uploads/tx_publication/Policypaper34-SBoucher-ClimateChange-en.pdf]
What EU governments and institutions can do in the forthcoming months in relation to US plans for climate change can only be
modest in the context of an electoral campaign. However, with the promising trends described above, an unprecedented opportunity
has arisen to form a transatlantic alliance to lead efforts to fight global warming. Climate change could now be seen as a common
cause for the EU and the USA, rather than an issue that pits both sides of the Atlantic against each other. There is the possibility to help
drive the world towards an international agreement that seriously tackles the issue of global warming. In light of these objectives, EU policy-makers
should, more specifically: •Maintain high standards; • Monitor closely US efforts and debates and engage in discussions over precise mechanisms in
order to address competitiveness concerns jointly; • Encourage common thinking on China and India.45 These tasks will fall primarily to the French
administration under its presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008, to European Commission officials, and to the Swedish presidency, in the
second half of 2009, as the Czech government has clearly indicated that climate change will not be a priority, unlike for the French and Swedish
governments. Despite Czech President Vaclav Klaus’ skepticism regarding climate change, the Czech government has nevertheless indicated
informally to its French partners that it will not hinder France’s efforts to conclude legislative negotiations on the Commission’s proposals by the end
of 2008. 3.2 Maintain high standards If the EU wishes to play an active role, it should not provide ammunition for those in the USA seeking to lower
long-term objectives nor weaken future US legislation. This could happen with the current dilution of goals indicated by the fact that the EU had
committed to a reduction by 25- 40% in Bali. The EU environment commissioner, as mentioned above, has talked of an insufficient goal of 50%
emissions reduction below 1990 levels by 2050. This goal was in fact endorsed at the June 2007 G8 meeting in Heiligendamm. This sends the wrong
signal. A weakening of EU resolve has also been noticed concerning auctioning rules. Emphatic talk about the EU’s leadership should not hide this.
At present, the best thing the EU can do in 2008 is therefore to put its own house in order. This would mean reaching a preliminary agreement
between the Council and the Parliament by the end of 2008 and sticking as closely as possible to the Commission’s proposal. This will require
resisting national industry lobbying on a number of dimensions. European policy makers should also consider enforcing the 30% emissions reduction
target by 2020 even before an international agreement is reached. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected, this will help them stick to the more
demanding plans they have backed. If McCain is elected, this will help him go higher than the 65% reduction goal by 2050 he has announced,
considered insufficient, and at least not go lower. On the other hand, one should be wary of letting the current US administration’s recalcitrance push
Europe to make counter-proposals that are too bold. A careful balance needs to be found between proposing anything too radical, while keeping the
pressure on, and preparing for quick movement in January 2009. 3.3 Initiate discussion on mechanisms Two striking observations can be made
regarding the current situation. First, for the first time, legislative proposals seeking to address climate change happen to be under
discussion in parallel on both sides of the Atlantic and may come to fruition in 2009. Second, as seen above, while there are real
similarities between US and EU plans, the United States may possibly go further than the EU on a number of aspects, and vice versa.
The opportunity is thus ripe for Europe to engage the United States in climate policy deliberations and for EU discussions to benefit
from US plans. Whether with each campaign individually, or the US policy arena collectively, the most important thing is for Europe
to engage Americans actively on the climate issue. The American mainstream is fast becoming aware of the climate problem, and
could benefit from learning of Europe’s experience in tackling the issue. Also, it is crucial that both US and EU policies trend towards
harmonization and integration, especially for the functioning of carbon markets. Therefore, at this formative stage, the European
Union, the United States, and the world would benefit from a closer alignment of climate policies across the Atlantic. Efforts should
be focused on finding common legislative ground, so as to increase the likelihood that the US outcome can work with the EU regime,
and vice versa. Until the future tells us who becomes the next US President, EU policymakers would therefore be well advised to
follow closely discussions and legislative progress on climate change in the USA. They should continue carrying out negotiations with
the Bush administration while remembering that a more climate-ambitious administration will be coming soon. Pursuing informal channels of
diplomacy is also in order. Making contact with the staff of all three candidates would be wise. Informal diplomacy, with the help of relevant EU and
US think tanks and officials would not be time wasted. Engaging private sector stakeholders across the two sides of the Atlantic is also important, to
foster common thinking and support. 3.4 Encourage common thinking on China, India and other major emitters The critical issue moving forward is
treatment of BRICs and differentiated responsibility. This is the stated reason of the Byrd-Hagel resolution opposing the Kyoto treaty in 1997, and
could ultimately derail - or at least stymie and delay - US climate policy action. Therefore, addressing this issue is essential for ensuring US action,
no matter who the President-elect is. Europe has a vital and important role to play in facilitating these difficult discussions, as it did in Bali. Also, the
EU and the future US President will agree that the best way to tackle global warming while limiting the impact on their
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competitiveness is by involving as many countries as possible under the principle of common but differentiated responsibility. This requires bringing
in developing countries, if necessary starting from relatively limited emission cuts. There will be no Congress backing if the BRICs are not seriously
committed. However, the current bill moving through Senate requires “comparable” action from developing countries, indicating that it may become
more flexible on the issue. Considering the outcome of the December UNFCCC Bali meeting, it
would seem that China is ready to play a more constructive role. China and other emerging countries agreed for the first time in Bali to try to make
“measurable, reportable and verifiable” emissions cuts.46 However, they did not appear to be ready to agreeing to any mandatory restrictions in the
near future. Their priority remains economic development. Both the EU and the USA should therefore seek jointly to make use of these
positive signals for a global climate treaty, while engaging in discussions with all major emitters with an open mind. Most
importantly, they should not talk unwisely of “border adjustments”47 and tariffs on imported goods from countries without carbon
pricing. Rightly so, EU Commission President Barroso said that this issue would only be reviewed in 2010 in the light of
international negotiations. EU government should adhere to this discipline. This is true also for the USA, where import tariffs have
been requested by a number of business interest groups.
Conclusion
Europe should already start looking beyond the Bush Administration and begin to engage alternative and emerging policy leaders.
This is a crucial period in US climate policy formulation and Europe has a rare and fleeting opportunity to help inform US climate
policy development. For those in Europe who assume that a Democrat as President of the USA would be more inclined to join forces
with Europe to lead the global fight against climate change, this paper suggests that there is in fact a unique opportunity lying ahead to
join forces with the forthcoming US administration, no matter who wins the November election. However, it also argues that the
resolve of any of the three could be dampened if faced with resistance. Or, possibly, with Europe’s own lack of ambition EU policy
makers today should be governed by an exceptional sense of urgency. If Europe adopts clear legislation, it could bolster efforts by
those in the USA who have similar goals. They should also be governed by the notion that convergence is desirable, as opposed to a
form of beauty contest some seem to believe the EU is engaged in with the United States. This could lead to the creation before the
end of 2009 of a transatlantic consensus helping shape a successor treaty to the Kyoto treaty. As Europe wrestles with the difficulty of
being leader and worries about the impact on its economy, its best hope today is to prepare to join forces with the next US
administration, setting bold long term emissions targets and encouraging cooperation with developing countries.
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The Plan Will be Percieved as a Trojan Horse to Block US Cap and Trade -
Ensuring EU Backlash
Time Magazine, staff writer Andrew Purvis, 6-4-07, Europe vs. Bush on global warming,
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1628024,00.html [Barber]
The targets require taking steps to ensure that average temperatures on the planet increase by no more than 2 degrees celsius by the
end of the century, and to slash greenhouse gas emissions to 50% of the 1990 level before 2050. But when the German draft was
circulated two weeks ago in Washington, U.S. negotiators declared, in a document leaked shortly afterwards, that the German draft
"crossed multiple 'red lines'" and that "there is only so far we can go, given our fundamental opposition to the German position." Then,
on May 31, President George W. Bush announced his own climate change inititiative, which calls on the leaders of the 15 leading
producers of the heat-trapping gases to develop long term voluntary emission-reduction goals. The proposal, notably short on
specfics, raised concern in Europe that Bush was trying to make an end-run around the existing United Nations process for
addressing climate change, which includes the Kyoto agreement. The German environment minister warned of a possible "trojan
horse" designed to sidestep an agreement in Heiligendamm and "torpedo the international climate protection process." Underlying
the increasingly testy exchange are fundamental differences over how the climate crisis is to be addressed. The biggest worry in
Europe is that the Bush Administration approach of stressing technology and voluntary targets will weaken the global effort under
U.N. auspices to set mandatory targets. "America increasingly wants to use new technologies and in this way test how much carbon
dioxide emissions can be decreased," Angela Merkel told the newsmagazine Der Spiegel. "We Europeans find it more compelling to
agree on goals on an international level, and direct our efforts accordingly." She added: "I encourage [President Bush] to be
courageous and lead the way with concrete climate protection goals." Sigmar Gabriel, the German Environment Minister, added:
"What we need now is a worldwide climate change regime. We need clear aims and we have to be able to check if the contracting
partners stick to the goals." Defenders of the Bush plan contend that it would actually help the U.N. process by bringing in countries
such as China and India, along with the U.S., that have been reluctant to sign on to a more top-down approach. And tempers appear to
be cooling as the G8 summit draws near. Merkel announced over the weekend that the U.S. President's proposals of May 31 were, in
fact, "very welcome ... if they are channeled into the framework of [U.N. treaty negotiations]." Blair, speaking afterward, agreed that
"it is good that the U.S. has made these commitments," while adding, "We need to make sure that we keep these targets within the
U.N. agreement." Still, the U.S. and the Europeans are unlikely to resolve differences when their leaders meet this week. Though
there's a chance the Europeans could water down the communique by agreeing to remove concrete targets, Merkel insisted last
weekend that she would not do so. No European leaders are going to suffer politically for standing up to the Bush Administration on
global warming. But they point to President Bush's recent acknowledgement that man-made global warming is a reality as a sign of
progress — and sufficient reason for avoiding a head-on collision, at least for now. Administration on global warming. But they point
to President Bush's recent acknowledgement that man-made global warming is a reality as a sign of progress — and sufficient reason
for avoiding a head-on collision, at least for now.
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EU Climate Trade Sanctions Spills Over to Collapse the WTO
Euractiv '8 [January 28, EU Warned of Trade War Over Climate Measures, http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?
type=DocDet&ObjectId=MjgyNjc]
The Commission's threat of climate-related trade sanctions aimed at putting EU and third country producers on a level
footing appears mainly targeted at convincing governments in Washington and Beijing to adhere to a global deal on
climate change. Indeed, the EU executive has confirmed that it will not decide on the introduction of any such measures
before 2011. However, the mere fact that the EU is considering such action has already caused outrage among its trade
partners. The United States has warned it would "vigorously" resist any move to introduce a tax on American products based
on its position in. Last week , US Trade Representative Susan Schwab accused the EU of using the climate as an excuse for
protectionism. Legal experts remain divided on whether the EU's proposed measures would be compatible with international
trade regulations, as the WTO has no clear provisions on the subject. On the one hand, border adjustment measures could be
considered to contravene WTO rules prohibiting discrimination between countries or between "like products". On the other,
WTO law also states that countries may deviate from these rules if it is for the protection of animal, plant or human health or
for the conservation of natural resources. Positions Commission President José Manuel Barroso said: "There would be no
point in pushing EU companies to cut emissions if the only result is that production, and indeed pollution, shifts to countries
with no carbon disciplines at all." A spokesman from the US Mission to the EU told EurActiv that while the US was
encouraged to see that the EU's new climate package does not introduce any trade-restrictive action on imports, the US would
be "vigorous in resisting calls for any form of trade protectionism as a response to climate change." Furthermore, the US
appears to have won British support. "We are against any measures which might look like trade barriers […] There is always
the danger that the protectionists in Europe - and they do exist - could use this as a kind of secret weapon to bring about
protectionism," British Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks told the BBC. France, however, is continuing to push for
protection against unfair international competition to avoid massive delocalisation of EU companies. The establishment
of a border adjustment mechanism is a "fundamental element" of the package and France will work "very closely" with the
European Commission between now and 2011 on proposals to set up the scheme, insisted French Minister of Ecology and
Sustainable Development Jean-Louis Borloo . According to the Financial Times, Ujal Singh Bhatia, India's ambassador to
the WTO , warned against the risk of retaliation and litigation from the EU's trade partners if it goes ahead with trade
restrictive measures. He said: "Unilateral measures at this stage would create contentiousness and lead to charges of
protectionism […] If the countries imposing such measures invoke Gatt provisions to justify them, the dispute settlement
mechanism in [the] WTO would face serious challenges and create divisions along North-South lines." However, British
Liberal MEP Chris Davies welcomed the idea of tariffs, saying they would create a level-playing field for business: "It makes
more likely an emissions trading scheme on a worldwide basis, if manufacturers in China know they are not going to gain
entry." But business leaders fear that imposing "climate tariffs" could provoke trade retaliation. Folker Franz, a senior
policy adviser at BusinessEurope, the European employers' organisation , said: "If you impose import measures on others,
the others might do the same." As an alternative, he said the EU should promote the clean development mechanism – a
scheme which allows European companies to invest in carbon-reduction projects in the developing world.
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Nuclear Extinction
Copley News ’99 [12/1, Commentary, ln]
For decades, many children in America and other countries went to bed fearing annihilation by nuclear war. The specter of nuclear
winter freezing the life out of planet Earth seemed very real. Activists protesting the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle
apparently have forgotten that threat. The truth is that nations join together in groups like the WTO not just to further their own
prosperity, but also to forestall conflict with other nations. In a way, our planet has traded in the threat of a worldwide nuclear war
for the benefit of cooperative global economics. Some Seattle protesters clearly fancy themselves to be in the mold of nuclear
disarmament or anti-Vietnam War protesters of decades past. But they're not. They're special-interest activists, whether the cause is
environmental, labor or paranoia about global government. Actually, most of the demonstrators in Seattle are very much unlike
yesterday's peace activists, such as Beatle John Lennon or philosopher Bertrand Russell, the father of the nuclear disarmament
movement, both of whom urged people and nations to work together rather than strive against each other. These and other war
protesters would probably approve of 135 WTO nations sitting down peacefully to discuss economic issues that in the past might have
been settled by bullets and bombs. As long as nations are trading peacefully, and their economies are built on exports to other
countries, they have a major disincentive to wage war. That's why bringing China, a budding superpower, into the WTO is so
important. As exports to the United States and the rest of the world feed Chinese prosperity, and that prosperity increases demand for
the goods we produce, the threat of hostility diminishes. Many anti-trade protesters in Seattle claim that only multinational
corporations benefit from global trade, and that it's the everyday wage earners who get hurt. That's just plain wrong. First of all, it's
not the military-industrial complex benefiting. It's U.S. companies that make high-tech goods. And those companies provide a
growing number of jobs for Americans. In San Diego, many people have good jobs at Qualcomm, Solar Turbines and other companies
for whom overseas markets are essential. In Seattle, many of the 100,000 people who work at Boeing would lose their livelihoods
without world trade. Foreign trade today accounts for 30 percent of our gross domestic product. That's a lot of jobs for everyday
workers. Growing global prosperity has helped counter the specter of nuclear winter. Nations of the world are learning to live and
work together, like the singers of anti-war songs once imagined. Those who care about world peace shouldn't be protesting world
trade. They should be celebrating it.
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Uniqueness
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US-EU relations are strong even in the areas of trade and climate change.
Colleen P. Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs,
5/13/08, Gaffy, Trade, Climate Change and Soft Power--Does America Have Friends in
Europe?, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/104981.htm [SD]
So, when I am posed the question: “Does America have friends in Europe with regard to trade and climate change?” I would say not
only does the U.S. have friends, the U.S. also has partners. Let’s remember that the transatlantic market today makes up nearly 55
percent of global GDP and about 40 percent of world trade. So there is a strong incentive to work together as friends and partners.
Both the United States and Europe believe in strong and effective regulation to protect our citizens and the environment. However, in
some cases, unnecessary differences in our regulatory approaches have made our companies less competitive, raised consumer costs,
reduced consumer choice and slowed job creation. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and BusinessEurope believe that if we could align
our economies better, we could generate $10 billion in saved costs and potential growth for the transatlantic economy. And so,
working together, we are trying to do exactly that, by creating the Transatlantic Economic Council (TEC), which met for the second
time today in Brussels. The TEC was created in April 2007, under the Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration,
and was signed by President Bush, Chancellor Merkel and European Commission President Barroso during the U.S.-EU Summit in
Washington, DC. The goal of the TEC is to promote regulatory cooperation, eliminate barriers to transatlantic trade, advance capital
market liberalization, and strengthen support for open investment regimes. In short, it is trying to reduce barriers to trade and
investment. In the area of the environment, the Transatlantic Economic Council is recommending that the June 2008 U.S.-EU Summit
consider joint efforts in clean energy technologies that will help us address our shared concerns about energy security and climate
change.
Bush implements many climate change policies to keep US-EU relations strong
Colleen P. Graffy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs,
5/13/08, Gaffy, Trade, Climate Change and Soft Power--Does America Have Friends in
Europe?, http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/104981.htm [SD]
Another example of our multilateral cooperation with the EU is the Methane to Markets Partnership, which is an international effort to
promote methane recovery and its use as a clean source of energy. Methane accounts for 16 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions
that come from human activities. It remains in the atmosphere for up to 15 years and is also a primary constituent of natural gas and an
important energy source. So if we can either prevent or use methane emissions, we can achieve significant energy, economic and
environmental benefits. This Partnership, which began in 2004, has the potential to deliver, by 2015, annual reductions in methane
emissions that would be the equivalent of removing 33 million cars from the roadways for one year, or planting 55 million acres of
trees. The Transatlantic Economic Council and the Methane to Markets Partnership are two examples of U.S.-EU cooperation. Before
I describe others, it might be helpful to know about the commitments the U.S. has made domestically on energy security, renewable
and alternative energy sources and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As many of you know, President Bush signed the
Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) in December 2007. EISA was in response to the President’s "Twenty in Ten" challenge
in last year's State of the Union Address to improve vehicle fuel economy and increase alternative fuels. The act includes some
significant measures, including a Renewable Fuels Mandate that will increase the use of renewable fuels by 500 percent, and a Vehicle
Fuel Economy Mandate, which specifies a national mandatory fuel economy standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. That mandate
alone would save billions of gallons of fuel and increase efficiency by 40 percent. EISA also phases out the use of incandescent light
bulbs by 2014, sets new mandatory efficiency standards for appliances, and requires all federal buildings to reduce their energy
consumption by 30 percent by 2015 and to be carbon-neutral by 2030.
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The short answer is: favorably.20 As summarized in Table 1 below, plans endorsed by US presidential candidates are on par with EU
plans on several key dimensions of emissions trading. A notable exception is the issue of flexibility, where US proposals allow for
overly generous use of reduction projects outside the USA.
First, the long-term targets in US legislative proposals (between 65% for McCain and 80% for Clinton and Obama) are at least as
ambitious as the EU’s, if not more. Official EU statements have suggested that “significant emission reductions of 60%-80%
compared to 1990 will be necessary by 2050, if we are to reach the strategic objective of limiting the global average temperature
increase to not more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”22 Yet, EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas also recently spoke
of the need for global emissions to “be cut by at least 50% of 1990 levels by 2050.”
The percentage of auctioning is higher. And coverage, both in terms of industries and gases is also potentially greater. For the EU, it
represents about half its economy from 2013. For the US, about 80%.
One might consider Obama’s environmental record, Clinton’s precise plans, or McCain’s boldness in sponsoring legislation in Congress to
suggest that one or the other is a better candidate for fighting climate change. One can also find fault with each candidate. A crucial
assessment was made by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Recalling that a minimum of 80% below 2000 levels is required from the
United States to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C, UCS argues that the Sanders-Boxer Bill achieves that, but not the McCain-
Lieberman Bill.19 Notwithstanding this assessment, McCain has not sufficiently strengthened his proposals. In his defense, considering his
party’s stance, this would probably be politically suicide at this stage, and one should not exclude his willingness to agree to a higher target if
elected President.
Albeit with shades of green, it appears overall that all three current US presidential hopefuls have relatively good credentials to fight climate
change—especially if compared with former Republican candidates— and collaborate with the EU to negotiate a successor treaty to the
Kyoto Treaty. Another question is whether Europe’s plans will measure up with the United States’.
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EU leaders expect McCain and Obama to participate in international cap and trade.
Patrick Wintour, political editor for The Guardian, 7/8/08, Clouds part slowly in climate change diplomacy,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/08/g8.climatechange [SD]
There is also an acceptance that there must be interim targets for emissions reductions, presumably for 2020, and an agreement that a
new body may be needed to guide this process through the UN. The EU has already unilaterally targeted a 20% interim cut by 2020.
This, in the sphere of international climate change diplomacy, represents progress, and sets the course for further talks through the UN
leading to an agreement at Copenhagen at the end of next year on a precise deal designed to replace the Kyoto agreement that expires
in 2012. Copenhagen has always been seen as the ultimate destination for these talks. But Gordon Brown, like every other European
leader, has been waiting politely for George Bush to leave the international stage and allow either John McCain or Barack Obama to
embrace deep carbon cuts by 2050, based on an international cap and trade scheme. In private he points out that he has spoken to both
McCain and Obama about climate change, and both are committed to changing US policy. Obama favours an 80% cut in emissions by
2050 using a baseline of 1990, and McCain favours a 60% cut. Both favour an international cap and trade mechanism to achieve this.
"Cap and trade is being implemented in Europe and they have stumbled and they've had problems but it is still the right thing to do,"
McCain has said. McCain is probably more pro-nuclear of the two, and Obama appears to have a more progressive view on biofuels,
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He has also voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, contrary to President George Bush’s desire and despite party
pressure. As suggested by political commentator and senior staff writer at Grist.org David Roberts, “These aren’t chopped liver. All
were acts of courage undertaken in a time of Republican majority, when they offered little political reward.”
Relative to other Republican candidates, McCain is definitely good news for Europe and climate change. Other Republican hopefuls,
such as Mitt Romney, only grudgingly acknowledged human influence on the climate and were very critical of McCain’s stance.
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Europe is withholding boarder taxes because they expect that the United
States will cap emission- new climate proposals will be used as an excuse for
protectionism
James Kanter and Stephen Castle, January 22, 2008, International Herald Tribune,
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/01/22/us_warns_eu_on_using_climate_change_as_pretext/
BRUSSELS - The United States warned the European Union yesterday against using climate change as a pretext for
protectionism, setting the stage for trans-Atlantic tension over a new package of EU measures to combat global warming. 'We
have been dismayed . . . where we have seen the climate and the environment being used.' The pointed comments by the US trade
representative, Susan Schwab, after talks in Brussels, came just two days before the European Commission introduced its proposals
for cutting EU emissions at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. "We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where
we have seen the climate and the environment being used as an excuse to close markets," Schwab said after discussions with
Peter Mandelson, her European counterpart. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has called for a carbon tax on imports to ensure that
European companies that need to comply with tough environmental rules are not undercut by foreign competitors whose governments
are not capping carbon emissions. EU officials were not expected to propose such a measure tomorrow but were expected to
keep alive the possibility of a so-called border tax to keep European industries competitive. The EU pledge to protect
European industry by 2011 at the latest will be aimed at assuaging powerful lobby groups from sectors like steel and
aluminum manufacturing, which say they are facing higher costs than their overseas competitors because of the EU's
determination to lead the world in climate protection. Even so, EU officials hope to be able to avoid the issue, not least because
any European border tax could be challenged at the World Trade Organization. Instead, EU officials hope that other developed
countries like the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto climate treaty, will join an international treaty by the end of the
decade, making protectionist measures unnecessary.
TOYAKO, Japan (AP) — President Bush and other world leaders made gradual progress Tuesday on climate change, but finalizing a
long-term global agreement on what to do about the fevered planet remains elusive. Climate change, the focus of this year's meeting of
industrialized nations, is just one on a long list of global issues — from Iran's nuclear weapons program to missile defense — that
Bush is trying to push forward at the Group of Eight summit. With his popularity low at home and fewer than 200 days left in office,
Bush is methodically promoting his issues, seemingly ready to accept incremental progress rather than pursuing eye-catching
breakthroughs. The G-8 endorsed cutting global emissions of greenhouse gases by 50 percent by 2050 and called for emitters to set
midterm reduction targets. The White House quickly hailed the G-8 declaration as a validation of Bush's approach. "This represents
substantial progress from last year," said Dan Price, the president's deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.
Price said the G-8 acknowledged that it alone cannot effectively address climate change — that contributions from all major
economies are required — a position Bush has argued repeatedly. Price also said the declaration struck here Tuesday reflects the sense
the development and deployment of clean technologies in developing nations is crucial — another thing that Bush has been pushing.
The president long has insisted that major emerging economies like China and India be included in any global plan to cut emissions.
Bush scored a small victory in getting the other big-polluting major economy nations to agree to attend a meeting Wednesday on the
sidelines of a summit. It's unclear, however, whether the heads of state at Wednesday's session will "finalize" a long-term goal for
reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, as Bush predicted back in September.
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The Bali Action Plan has, in a sense, left open a space for the US’ level of ambition to be negotiated under the UNFCCC to which it is
a party, and noted that the commitment of the United States should be “comparable” with other industrialised countries. This question
of comparability is nicely treated in Boucher’s analysis as it is quite clear that current US legislative proposals, while quite ambitious
in the longer-term, are far away from the 25 to 40% range currently under negotiation. Europe must therefore engage the US Senate
and the three candidates sooner rather than later to begin defining what a comparable effort might be. As Boucher notes, Europe will
be in a far stronger position for this negotiation if it is able to complete its own legislative process on its target of 20% below 1990 by
2020 by the end of 2008 under the French Presidency.
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Europe wants countries to cap emissions or they will permit energy incentive exports.
Jennifer L Morgan, Director at Climate and Energy Security for Third Generation Environmentalism, 5/20/08,
Clinton, Obama, McCain – Europe’s opportunity to shape a presidency,
http://www.e3g.org/images/uploads/Reaction_E3G_Notre_Europe_Policy_Paper_34_US___EU_Climate_Chan
ge.pdf [SD]
Recently, voices on both sides of the Atlantic have increasingly started to call for the use of trade sanctions as a tool to protect energy-
intensive industries and/or workers. There is still however a distinct difference in approach. While Europe is waiting to see the
outcome of the Copenhagen negotiations before implementing any protective measures for energy-intensive industries, the
Lieberman/Warner bill poses a more explicit threat to emerging economies (i.e. China). The bill sets out that these countries should
take on a national cap by a certain date or accept an emissions permit levy on energy-intensive exports to the US. This provision
ignores the responsibility of the US and other developed countries to cut their emissions further and faster than developing countries.
It would antagonise developing countries, make it harder to get a deal at Copenhagen and help only a handful of industries (energy
intensive goods account for just 3% of US imports from China). Far more effective would be for Europe to continue its more positive
engagement with China to bring together the world’s largest single market with the world’s most dynamic economy in the pursuit of a
combined transition to a low carbon economy. For example, next year the European Commission should decide to remove high tariffs
on Chinese compact fluorescent lightbulbs so that European consumers can purchase cheap low carbon goods, and Chinese producers
can see the benefit of producing them. Really making such low carbon markets function would create massive first-mover benefits for
both economies, and would signal the way forward for a more positive and proactive engagement from US business interests.
Chicago Tribune 6/15/’8 [With Bush near exit, Europe's ire softens, ln]
Even the tone has changed. In an interview with the Times of London, the president was applauded for adopting language "much less
jarring, more conciliatory than it once was." "His humor is self-deprecating," the paper said. This is a marked change from the
characterizations that had become so familiar. The "Toxic Texan" with his "cowboy diplomacy" seems to many over here a distant
memory. And on his last trip to Europe, Bush might just have achieved something that had hitherto eluded him. With his newfound
support for climate-change policy, his emphasis on a multilateral approach to Iran and his commitment, however belated, to
engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Bush comes across as being constructive: a man to do business with. He looks like a
statesman.
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We Control the Uniqueness Trend - Bush’s Moves Have been Towards Regulation
MSNBC ‘7 [Oct 4, U.S. official: CO2 regulation likely, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21135556/]
The United States is moving toward the regulation of carbon emissions, a U.S. energy official said Thursday, even though the Bush
administration adheres to a voluntary approach to controlling the primary gas blamed for climate change. "There will be carbon
regulation of some sort," said Dan Arvizu, director of the National Renewable Energy Lab, speaking a week after he briefed President
Bush's global warming conference in Washington. "I am neutral as to which kind of carbon management regulation there will be. It is
very clear to me that there will be carbon management, whether it will be a direct tax, carbon cap-and-trade or some other instrument,"
Arvizu told an international conference on the next generation of biofuels. Arvizu did not say he was speaking for the administration.
But some of his listeners thought it was significant that he spoke after the Washington meeting that brought the United States together
with leading industrial nations which have embraced stringent mandatory controls and with developing countries like India, China and
Brazil which are totally unregulated. "He's picking up the vibe" in Washington, said Patrick Mazza, chairman of the biofuel
conference and research director of Climate Solutions based in Seattle. Arvizu later told The Associated Press the United States "is
headed in a different direction than we were a few years ago." He said executives of utility companies and U.S. oil giants — two
lobbies that had resisted regulation — now want predictable and transparent carbon policies. "Certainly my reference point has
changed dramatically," he said. "The position of this administration is beginning to evolve." In his speech to the Washington
conference, Bush reiterated his view that each nation should set targets for itself and decide how it will combat global warming
without hindering economic growth. But Arvizu said that, while Bush remained in favor of voluntary targets, his position is not as
rigid as it once was, and he made a point of telling the Washington meeting that he has accepted a mandatory renewable fuel standard
for vehicles.
U.S. is Determening its Approach to C02 Regulations - 2008 Will be the Determening Year
Fox News 5/14/’7 [Bush Orders Regulations to Cut Carbon Emissions in Response to High Court Ruling,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272078,00.html]
President Bush on Monday ordered his cabinet members to begin drafting rules that will comply with recent a Supreme Court decision
combating greenhouse gases as well as meet his call to begin replacing gasoline with alternative fuels. "We're taking action by taking
the first step towards rules that will make our economy stronger, our environment cleaner and our nation more secure for generations
to come," Bush said, addressing reporters in the Rose Garden. Bush said he ordered his cabinet members to finish the process by the
end of 2008. While the regulations he called for can be implemented by the executive branch, Bush added that Congress could make even more of a
difference. "With good legislation, we could save up to 8.5 billion gallons of gasoline per year by 2017 and further reduce greenhouse gas emissions
from cars and trucks," Bush said. Bush said he signed an executive order Monday directing the EPA and the Energy, Transportation and Agriculture
departments to work with White House staff and Congress to develop regulations that will meet the needs of the ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA by
using Bush's "20 in 10" plan to reduce gasoline consumption by 20 percent by 2017 as a starting point. The 20 in 10 plan focuses on reducing
Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards — the average fuel economy standards for autos and light trucks — as well as reducing
gasoline consumption by boosting alternative fuel consumption to 35 billion gallons by 2017. The White House is hoping for a bipartisan accord to
make way for broader, more effective changes. "This is a proposal that seems to give both parties what they say they want in terms of pursuing
energy independence and at the same time pursuing a cleaner environment," White House press secretary Tony Snow said earlier Monday. "So there
ought to be a pretty good bipartisan basis for passing such legislation. We'll continue to work it." Last month in a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court
ruled carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases qualify as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act and can be regulated by the EPA, which the
administration had fought. The court also said the reasons the administration had given for declining to regulate greenhouse gases are insufficient,
and that the agency must regulate carbon dioxide, the leading gas linked to global warming, if it finds that it endangers public health. Bush has said
that he recognized the serious environmental problems created by such emissions and other so-called greenhouse gases. But he has
urged against anything other than a voluntary approach to curbing emissions, saying regulations could undercut economic activity.
The president also says he will accept no global deal on greenhouse gases without the participation of China, India and other high-
polluting, developing nations. Since taking control of Congress in January, Democrats have held a number of hearings exploring the
consequences of climate change and have been pressuring the administration to say when it will comply with the high court's ruling
and decide whether to regulate carbon dioxide. The environmental group Environmental Defense said the effort "will fall far short of
fixing the climate problem" without mandatory caps on carbon emissions. "Whether EPA will lead the fight against global warming
or lead us to a hotter planet remains to be seen," said Environmental Defense President Fred Krupp. "It's time for this administration to
join with the mainstream of American businesses and support a cap on carbon."
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Inside U.S. Trade 5/13/’8 [EU Decides To Launch Investigation Into U.S. Biodiesel Subsidies, ln]
The U.S. grants income tax and excise tax credits for biodiesel used in the U.S. and exported to the EU. The EU grants tax
credits to all biodiesel used in the EU but does not grant credits to exports. As a result, U.S. biodiesel used
in the EU can receive credits from the U.S. as well as the EU, putting European manufacturers at a
disadvantage. The biodiesel tax credits are in place until the end of 2008. An early version of the newly enacted farm bill included
an extension of this sunset, but the extension was removed in the final version.
William LaJeunesse, @ Fox News, 6/13/8 ['Splash and Dash' Biofuel Scam Costs Americans Millions, Lawmakers Say,
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369495,00.html]
A lawmaker says U.S. taxpayers are being bilked to the tune of millions of dollars by a biofuel subsidy that helps to lower gas prices
in Europe, and he's leading the charge to close the apparent loophole. “In 2007 this subsidy cost the American taxpayer $300 million,
and it’s projected to cost the American taxpayers $600 million next year,” said Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz. • Click here to view
video. The scam — as Shadegg and others call it — is known as “splash and dash.” It stems from an existing $1 subsidy for every
gallon of biodiesel fuel blended with regular diesel in the United States. Here’s how it works: Biodiesel is produced abroad using
South American sugar cane or Asian palm oil and shipped to the United States, where it’s blended with just a “splash” of regular
diesel. A typical tanker-load of about 9 million gallons of biodiesel requires just 9,000 gallons of American diesel to make it qualify
for the subsidy. But every gallon in the shipment garners a buck. The ship then makes a “dash” for Europe, where its fuel is sold
below market rates. That means each tanker-load that makes the dash nets importers about $9 million dollars in tax credits from the
IRS. Lawmakers have estimated its cost to Americans at tens — or even hundreds — of millions each year. And while Congress and
the National Biodiesel Board say they know the loophole is being exploited — as America is exporting much more biofuel than it's
producing — they’ve been unable to identify the guilty companies. “Ultimately when you dig down it gets to the point that you would
have to have access to IRS information,” said Manning Feraci, vice president of federal affairs at the National Biodiesel Board.
“Taxpayer information is confidential, so we can’t have access to it.” “We really haven’t found out the names of the companies who
are profiting from it,” Shadegg told FOX News. “I think the bad actors are the members of Congress who are allowing this to happen.”
Shadegg wants to end “splash and dash” by eliminating the subsidy for any biodiesel exported from the United States, which he says
harms energy independence. Shadegg is pushing his bill in the House, which has already passed measures
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Links
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The Affs Perception That the US is Moving From Cap and Trade Collapse
Relations
William A. Nitze President, Gemstar Group, summer 2001, Beyond Kyoto: a Plan to Bridge the U.S.-EU Gap, European affairs, [adit]
A U.S. alternative to Kyoto should be built around a domestic "cap and trade" proposal that combines a more realistic and politically
acceptable short-term emissions reduction target with a commitment to achieve more far-reaching reductions in the longer term.
The proposed system should include all greenhouse gases so as to reduce its overall cost, be supplemented by other market friendly
policies and mechanisms, and maintain a level playing field among established and new energy supply technologies and investments
in energy efficiency.
If Mr. Bush were to propose such an alternative, the United States and Europe could close the gap between them by agreeing on a
combination of more far-reaching environmental goals, market-based policies for achieving these goals, and a common approach for
encouraging deployment of environmentally friendly technologies.
Agreement on more far-reaching environmental goals is the element that poses the greatest challenge to the Bush administration. By
rejecting the Kyoto Protocol without proposing an alternative, Mr. Bush has left open the possibility that he does not support any
binding target for U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and proposes to rely solely on business-as-usual technological change and voluntary
programs.
If the administration did formally adopt such a position, it would isolate the United States in the climate change issue and place a
significant strain on its overall relationship with the European Union.
Failure to make enormous emission cuts now guarantees sanctions to protect industry
Seattle pi, 3/14/08, EU leaders urge trade sanctions on U.S., China
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/355174_eusummit15.html [adit]
European Union leaders threatened the United States and China with trade sanctions Friday if the world's two biggest polluters don't
commit to ambitious cuts in greenhouse gases by next year.
The warning came as the economic downturn focused European leaders on the impact on industry of their groundbreaking agreement
last year to cut carbon emissions by 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
EU leaders want similar commitments from other major economies by next year, when a conference on global warming will take
place in Copenhagen, Denmark. Otherwise, they say European companies will need protection from unfair competition from heavily
polluting rivals in China and the United States -- the world's biggest emitters of carbon dioxide.
In a declaration issued after a two-day summit, the 27 EU leaders warned: "If international negotiations fail, appropriate measures can
be taken" to protect European industry.
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The Aff Creates The Perception that the US is Shifting Towards Voluntary Incentives, Ensuring European Tarrifs on the US
Thomas L. Brewer, Associate Professor at Georgetown University, Washington, DC and Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for
European Policy Studies (CEPS), June '8 [The Trade and Climate Change Joint Agenda CEPS Working Document No. 295/June
2008, http://shop.ceps.eu/downfree.php?item_id=1673.]
Issues have arisen about whether provisions in the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Act of 2007 are compatible with the WTO plurilateral Government
Procurement Agreement (GPA), to which the US is a signatory (NFTC, 2007, pp. 14-17). A key issue is whether provisions such as those requiring US
government agencies to purchase ‘low greenhouse gas emitting’ vehicles and to take into account energy efficiency standards in their
purchasing decisions could violate WTO non-discrimination principles or constitute disguised protectionism. There are several reasons to
believe there would not be such problems. In particular Article XXIII of the GPA, like Article XX of the GATT, allows exceptions to national treatment on the grounds
of protection of “human, animal, or plant life….” The conclusion of the NFTC was that the provisions of the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Act “do not
appear to be in violation” of the GPA. However, it also noted that “government procurement program specifications are more likely to qualify for GPA exceptions if
governments demonstrate their intent to engage multilaterally” (NFTC, 2007, p. 17). As for other countries, since only 12 countries plus the EU are signatories to the
GPA, its provisions are irrelevant to most countries. Yet, since the signatories do include for instance major trading countries - China, the EU and Japan, in particular -
there could be GPA-related issues that arise. An extensive analysis by Van Asselt, van der Grijp and Oosterhuis (2006) examines a variety of issues about the
intersection of climate-trade issues in relation to the GPA. 3. Sectoral Issues: International Aviation and Maritime Shipping The international aviation and
maritime shipping industries present quite different kinds of issues for the joint climate-trade agenda – for two reasons. First, there are already disputes involving both
industries because of their greenhouse gas emissions – an international aviation dispute that has entered onto the agenda of US-EU relations and the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO), and domestic legal actions within the US that target both the international aviation and maritime shipping industries. Second, the two
industries have always been outside the multilateral climate regime and the multilateral trade regime. Among the key issues, therefore, are whether, when, and how they
can be or should be brought into either or both of the two multilateral regimes. These two sets of issues – concerning disputes and concerning their positions outside the
multilateral regimes – are considered in turn. 3.1 International and Domestic Disputes The first international trade-climate dispute has already begun, at least
informally - namely the US government’s objections to the EU plan to cover aviation in its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). It is important to note that this is not a
formal dispute brought within the context of the WTO dispute settlement process. Rather, the basis of the US objection is the Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation of
1944, which established the system of bi-lateral agreements that regulate airline services and which is administered by the International Civil Aviation Organization
(ICAO). At issue, in part, is Article 15 which includes the following provision: “No fees, dues or other charges shall be imposed by any contracting State in respect
solely of the right of transit over or entry into or exit from its territory of any aircraft of a contracting State or persons or property thereon” (Chicago Convention, 1944).
8 US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Norway, Singapore, and Switzerland. THE TRADE AND CLIMATE CHANGE JOINT
AGENDA | 7 While the Office of the US Trade Representative has not made a formal public statement on the issue, the US Federal Aviation Administration, the US
Ambassador to the EU, and a representative of the US airline industry association have been vocal about the issue. An unnamed US government representative said the
EU had decided to go ahead with the plan “despite strong objections raised by the US” (Financial Times, 2006d; also see ICTSD Bridges, 2007). A statement by the US
Ambassador to the EU, Boyden Gray, in September 2007, was particularly direct: “We don’t think Europe has the authority to do it….The Europeans are confident of
their legal authority and people on the other side are equally confident of their position. It sounds like a lawsuit to me. I don’t see how it’s going to get resolved
politically” (International Herald Tribune, 2007). A representative of the Air Transport Association of America similarly observed “If [the Europeans] persist, there will
no doubt be a legal battle” (ICTSD Bridges, 2007); this comment followed a meeting of the ICAO in October 2007. The meeting reversed a 2004 resolution that had
supported regional emissions trading schemes. As a result, at the 2007 meeting 42 countries represented by the EU and the European Civil Aviation Conference
formally stated a ‘reservation’ to indicate that they would go ahead with the plan to include aviation in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Whether it can be resolved
politically remains to be seen. Importantly, the application of the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme to the aviation industry would not come into force until 2010, 2011 or
possibly even later, with international flights into and out of the EU possibly not included until a year after the initiation of the system for flights within the EU. This
would mean transatlantic flights involving the US would not be included until 2011 or 2012, long after a new US administration is in office. (For more on the case, see
Council on Foreign Relations, 2007; Eurarchiv, 2007; Financial Times, 2006a, 2006b, 2006, 2006d, 2007a, 2007b; US Mission to the EU, 2007). There have also been
legal cases within the US concerning the greenhouse gas emissions of both the international aviation industry and maritime shipping industry. Two separate but
closelyrelated petitions were filed with the US national government’s EPA in October 2007. One concerning aviation was filed by the states of California, Connecticut,
New Mexico, and Pennsylvania, the cities of New York and Washington, DC, a regional air quality district in California, and several environmental organisations. On
the basis of a Supreme Court decision that requires the EPA to consider carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as air pollutants, the petition asks the EPA to apply
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regulations to all planes, including those of foreign airlines, that land or take off from airports in the US - regulations that would reduce emissions through greater fuel efficiency,
improved aircraft designs, and cleaner fuels. A similar petition concerning international maritime shipping was filed at the same time (ICTSD, Bridges BioRes, 2007c, 2007d). 3.2
Coverage of the Multilateral Climate and Trade Regimes Perhaps most importantly for the place of the international aviation and maritime shipping industries in the
future climate change regime is the decision by the government of Norway to take a leadership role in an effort to include both industries in a the post-2012 climate regime. That
effort has included an international workshop on the issue just prior to the Bali conference (IISD, 2007; Norway, 2007). Since before the UNFCCC entered into force, there has
been concern about the increasing contributions of GHGs of the two industries, and in fact in recent years the emissions of the two industries have been increasing as fast as or
faster than any other sectors. From 1990 to 2004, international aviation emissions increased by 34% and international maritime emissions increased by 43%. In recent years,
aviation emissions have accounted for about 2% of total world GHG emissions and international maritime shipping has accounted for about 3%. The 5% 8 | THOMAS L.
BREWER of the world total for the combination of the two industries places them ahead of all but 5 national economies.9 However, technical problems with measuring their
emissions and allocating them between domestic and international trips, together with political obstacles, prevented the industries’ emissions from being included in Kyoto
Protocol targets. Further, in the national government and thus UNFCCC greenhouse gas reporting systems, the bunker fuels used for aviation and shipping are not included as
national emissions, but rather are reported separately as international emissions that are not associated with any particular country. Efforts to address the technical problems and
formulate industry emission targets were referred to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Many of the
technical problems have since been solved. For instance, the government of Switzerland has reported that it has a “database with information on 16,000 individual aircraft and 400
different types of engines” and “knows the exact split between domestic and international aviation emissions” (IISD, 2007, p. 4). As the perception has grown that efforts to
establish industry emission targets and other tangible evidence of progress in the addressing the problem have not materialised, efforts outside the UNFCCC framework and
outside the two industry-based international organisations have been gaining momentum (IISD, 2007; Norway, 2007). The increasing interest in global sector-specific agreements
as part of the post-2012 multilateral climate regime could facilitate inclusion of both industries in the new climate regime. The two industries have not only been outside the
multilateral climate regime; they have also been outside the multilateral trade regime. Government trade policies and industry practices have been considered within the context of
the ICAO and IMO. International trade in both of their services has been subject to a combination of national subsidies, national protectionist policies such as those that prevent
‘cabotage’ within countries by foreign firms, and international agreements that have limited competition among carriers. Although the privatisation and deregulation policies of
many governments and the renegotiation of international agreements, especially in the airline industry, have reduced the subsidy and protection programmes, international
competition in both industries is still relatively constrained by national and international trade policies (again outside the WTO in both industries).10 4. Offsetting Border Measures
that Address Free Rider, Carbon Leakage, and International Competitiveness Concerns Among the climate-trade issues that have emerged to date, one of the most
contentious concerns the possible use of offsetting border measures to reduce free rider, carbon leakage and international
competitiveness problems. The underlying problem in the terminology of political economy is that there can be ‘free riders’ on
international agreements, in this case multilateral climate change agreements. The problem, in short, is that any given country can
benefit from uch an agreement without incurring the costs of participating in it. Moreover, the regime can be undermined by the
‘leakage’ of emissions, as production increases in countries that are not party to the climate regime. Further, firms may fear that their
international competitive position is being undermined by lower energy prices in non-participating countries. In the US, these
issues have become salient in regard to emerging economy countries (especially Brazil, China, and India). In the EU, the issues have
arisen from time to time during the past several years in regard to US non-participation in the Kyoto Protocol. The emphasis in the
public discussions within the EU was initially on the possible imposition of offsetting tariffs, though the European Parliament’s
resolution (2005/2049) uses the generic term “border adjustment measures.” 12 The European Commission’s reaction to these
measures was initially to oppose them on the grounds that they risked exacerbating trade relations with the US, particularly at a time
when trade relations were already strained and when transatlantic relations more generally were unusually conflicted over a broad
range of issues. In addition, there have been concerns that such a measure would undermine support in the US among those political
and business circles that have been hoping for increased EU-US cooperation on climate change issues. There have also been concerns that such a
tariff might be challenged in a WTO dispute settlement case, and the outcome of such a case would inevitably be uncertain. However, before leaving office in 2007,
French President Chirac and Prime Minister de Villepin suggested again that such measures be undertaken, and President Sarkozy subsequently expressed interest in the
idea soon after his election. In November 2007 – in advance of the Bali climate change conference – the issue was again the subject of attention within the Commission
and Parliament, and among industry and environmental groups. EU Enterprise Commissioner Günter Verheugen suggested that the Commission was more favourably
inclined to address the issue through sectoral agreements, including perhaps voluntary global industry agreements - a position that has been supported by at least some
industry and environmental organisations (see especially, Financial Times, 2007; and EurActiv, 2007b). However, just before and after the release of the Commission’s
proposals for the extension of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) on 23 January 2008, there was a specific and salient resurgence of interest. Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso explicitly mentioned the possibility in a speech (European Commission, 2008a). The possibility of such action is left open for
future consideration, as is the possibility of granting all allowances free to energy- intensive industries (ICTSD, 2008a). The focus of
discussion, however, has shifted away from tariffs to importers’ purchases of emission credits.
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Just as trade policy will have climate effects, climate policy will have significant implications for trade relations and for the
trade regime (Gibbs 2003, pp. 16–17). By raising the cost of energy and energy-intensive goods, climate policies will affect
economic competitiveness—both among countries undertaking climate efforts, due to different mitigation costs, and between
those countries that undertake significant action and those that do not. To protect vulnerable sectors, governments may seek to
compensate Trade and climate Potential conflicts and synergies Trade and climate Potential conflicts and synergies for the
costs of domestic climate action by imposing comparable costs on imported products or by reducing costs on exported
products. Either approach is likely to invite challenge in the WTO. Apart from efforts to address competitiveness, national
policies to reduce GHG emissions may also come into conflict with trade rules to the extent they affect domestic and imported
products differently. In an acknowledgement of these possibilities, Article 2.3 of the Kyoto Protocol states that the parties shall
strive to implement policies and measures in such a way as to minimize adverse effects, including effects on
internationaltrade.1Moreover, the Protocol authorizes the parties to take further action to promote implementation of this
provision.2Another potential source of tension would be the use of trade measures to induce other countries to participate in a
climate regime or to enforce compliance among those that do participate. The idea that governments participating in the Kyoto
Protocol should act together to impose trade measures against the United States (in view of its decision not to join the Protocol)
is a recurrent image in writings about the climate regime, particularly by Europeans (e.g., Legrain 2002, p. 253). Some analysts
have also suggested that the evolving climate regime employ trade sanctions to hold parties to their commitments. Both uses of
trade measures could be challenged in the WTO. Although no climate-related dispute has yet reached the WTO, potential
conflicts appear on the horizon. Following the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Parliament called for new
initiatives “within supranational structures (in particular the World Trade Organisation)… designed to prevent
countries which do not ratify the Kyoto Protocol from obtaining unfair competitive advantages, particularly where
energy products are concerned.”3Venezuela has told a WTO committee that measures taken to implement the Protocol could
run afoul of trade rules and raise trade concerns (WTO 2002,para. 198). Saudi Arabia has cited “a number of areas in which
countries pursuing environmental objectives (such as climate change policy) may contravene their WTO obligations and seek
to protect their domestic interests” (Saudi Arabia 2002, par a. 57). That no dispute has bubbled up may suggest that trade action
—either unilateral or within the WTO—is more easily threatened, perhaps for political advantage, than actually launched. But
it may also be a sign of a constriction underneath the surface. Worries about infringing trade rules, reportedly, have led to a
“chilling effect” in some environmental negotiations in which prospective treaty measures are taken off the table because of
concerns that such measures might violate the WTO. The claim that prospective climate measures are a WTO violation may
also inhibit consideration of policies and measures at the national level. The good news is that opportunities exist for making
the trade and climate regimes more comple-mentary and, potentially, synergistic. The two regimes could, at a minimum, work
independently andtogether to anticipate and avoid conflicts between their mandates. The climate regime, for instance,could
facilitate a uniform approach to energy/GHG taxation, and particularly, the application of taxes toAdvancing the international
effort 142
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After more than a decade of negotiations and planning under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC), the first
binding international agreement to control the emissions of greenhouse gases has come into effect in the Kyoto Protocol. The
first budget period of 2008-2012 is at hand. Moreover, the scientific evidence on greenhouse warming strengthens steadily as
observational evidence of warming accumulates. The institutional framework of the Protocol has taken hold solidly in the EU's
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which covers almost half of Europe's CO2 emissions.
Notwithstanding this apparent success, the Kyoto Protocol is widely seen as somewhere between troubled and terminal. Early
troubles came with the failure to include the major developing countries along with lack of an agreed-upon mechanism to
include new countries and extend the agreement to new periods. The major blow came when the United States withdrew from
the Treaty in 2001. By 2002, the Protocol covered only 30% of global emissions, while the hard enforcement mechanism in the
ETS accounts for about 8% of global emissions. Even if the current Protocol is extended, models indicate that it will have little
impact on global temperature change. Unless there is a dramatic breakthrough or a new design, the Protocol threatens to be
seen as a monument to institutional overreach.
Nations are now beginning to consider the structure of climate-change policies for the period after 2008-2012. Some countries,
states, cities, companies, and even universities are adopting their own climate-change policies. Are there in fact alternatives to
the scheme of tradable emissions permit embodied in the Protocol? The fact is that alterative approaches have not had a serious
hearing among natural scientists or among policymakers. What are some alternatives? 1
For global public goods, there are three potential approaches: command-and-control regulation, quantity-oriented market
approaches, and tax- or price-based regimes. Of these, only the tradable-quantity and the price-like regimes have any hope of
being reasonably efficient.
Under a tradable quantity approach, an agreement proceeds by setting limits on emissions by different countries. The limits are
partially or wholly transferable among countries. This is the approach taken under the Kyoto Protocol. This approach has very
limited international experience under existing protocols such as the CFC mechanisms and somewhat broader experience under
national trading regimes, such as the U.S. SO2 regime.
A radically different approach is to use harmonized prices, fees, or taxes as a method of coordinating policies among countries.
This approach has no international experience in the environmental area, although it has modest experience nationally in such
areas as the U.S. tax on ozone-depleting chemicals. On the other hand, the use of harmonized price-type measures has
extensive international experience in fiscal and trade policies, such as with the harmonization of taxes in the EU and
harmonized tariffs in international trade.
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Link--environmental policy
In Washington, corporate lobbying has weakened or killed legislation aimed at regulating tobacco, pharmaceuticals and pollutants that
contribute to global warming. In all three cases, the affected industries spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying and advertising, all
to persuade lawmakers that regulation restricted the free market and would hurt American business.
Such tactics would not play well in Europe, where there is a long history of state intervention in the economy and where senior
government officials are usually more highly regarded than are corporate executives.
"If you go on the offensive in Europe it backfires and you lose on all fronts," said Erik Jonnaert, the chief lobbyist here for Procter &
Gamble.
American companies can ill afford such losses in a big market that is about to become bigger: after 10 nations join the European
Union next year, the rule makers here will represent more than a half-billion consumers
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Link --Incentives
Unfair advantages lead to EU imposition of tariffs on the US
Pew Center Global Climate Chainge, independent research group, 02 January, Implications for US Companies of Kyoto's Entry into
Force With the United States," http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Kyoto-USBusiness.pdf [Barber]
Kyoto will create an international market in GHG emission reductions from which private firms could potentially profit.
Emissions trading - In general, emissions trading would allow regulated companies to reduce their costs of compliance, but
would
not produce economic gains for regulated entities (unless the required emission reductions could be achieved through no
regrets
measures). The emissions trading rules adopted in Marrakech would not prevent U.S. companies from acting as financial
intermedi-
aries or brokers in facilitating emissions trades.
CDM - The Kyoto Protocol allows private entities to participate in CDM projects and thereby earn an additional return on
projects
that reduce GHG emissions or enhance sinks through the generation of certified emission reduction (CER) credits.
Under the Marrakech Accords, U.S. companies will be able to participate in the CDM despite U.S. non-participation in
Kyoto, since the rules allow developing countries to undertake unilateral CDM projects – that is, CDM projects that do
not involve the participation of an Annex B party. As a result, a U.S. company could undertake a CDM project in con-
junction with a host developing country.
In addition, the CDM rules adopted in Marrakech do not specifically require that “operating entities” (firms or other
entities that provide services such as review of baselines and verification of emissions reductions) be entities of Kyoto
Protocol parties. Thus, U.S. firms could potentially serve as operating entities under the CDM.
Joint implementation - Despite U.S. non-participation in Kyoto, U.S. firms could compete for emission reduction projects in
other
developed countries. Although the U.S. firms could not directly receive the emission reduction credits generated from such
projects,
they could receive their monetary equivalent.
Measures against U.S. Exporters
Trade sanctions - Conceivably Kyoto parties could try to use the Kyoto Protocol as a justification for imposing trade measures
against non-parties. However, such measures would be problematic under the GATT and would not address the fact that non-
Annex B parties and large seller nations such as Russia would all enjoy similar advantages.
A Kyoto party that imposed a carbon tax as part of its domestic implementation might argue that a border tax adjust-
ment was needed to compensate for the fact that non-parties such as the United States do not have a similar tax. In
general, the GATT allows countries to impose border tax adjustments. However, such a tax adjustment would need to
apply in a non-discriminatory manner to all countries that don’t impose similar taxes.
Annex B parties might argue that trade restrictions on goods from countries without comparable emission targets are
necessary in order to make their own climate policies effective by preventing leakage (that is, the migration of produc-
tion, and emissions, from Annex B parties to countries without targets). This paper does not address in detail whether
a World Trade Oranization panel would be likely to uphold attempts to use Kyoto as a basis to justify trade measures
against countries without comparable emission targets. However, the existing WTO jurisprudence makes it quite diffi-
cult for a country to impose trade restrictions against goods on the grounds that those goods are produced in a man-
ner that harms the environment.
Link -- Incentives
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Moreover, any restrictions would arguably need to be applied against all countries
without emission targets (including developing countries), not just non-parties such as the United States.
The European Parliament has already stated its view that the EU should launch an initiative in the WTO to prevent
non-parties from gaining unfair competitive advantages, so the threat of trade measures against the United States is
more than merely hypothetical.
Kenneth P. Green, Steven F. Hayward, Kevin A. Hassett, 6-1-07, Environmental policy outlook, AIE
(American Enterprise institute for public policy research) online publications, Climate Change: Caps vs. Taxes
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.26286/pub_detail.asp [Barber]
Establishing allowances and accounting systems for GHG emissions across industries is going to be vastly more difficult and
highly politicized. The forest products industry, for example, will reasonably want credits for creating carbon sinks in the trees
it plants and harvests, but the manufacturing sector that uses these wood products as a raw material will want credit for
sequestering carbon. The difference will have to be split in some arbitrary manner that will surely introduce economic
distortions in the marketplace. The auto industry will want credits for GHG innovations, while industries and businesses of all
kinds will lobby for credits for reducing mobile source emissions from changes to their auto and truck fleets. There are going to
be winners and losers in this allocation process. Multiply this problem across sectors and industries and it becomes evident that
a GHG emissions-trading system is going to be highly complex and unwieldy, and too susceptible to rent-seeking influence in
Washington. The problem of politically adjusting competing interests will be compounded on the international scale. The long-
running diplomatic conflicts that can be observed over purported subsidies for aircraft (i.e., Boeing versus Airbus) and the
European Union's agricultural subsidies and trade barriers are examples of the kinds of conflicts that will be endemic to any
international emissions-trading scheme.
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Link-- incentives
U.S. not complying with warming standards leads to sanctions and tariffs
which leads to global trade wars
Aldy, Joseph E., Peter R. Orszag, and Joseph E. Stiglitz. 2001. Climate Change: An Agenda for Global Collective Action,
Paper Prepared for the Conference on “The Timing of Climate Change Policies,” Pew Center on Global Climate
Change, October http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:COMuvbVKm-8J:www.sbgo.com/Papers/Aldy-Orszag-
Stiglitz_5.pdf+climate+change:+an+agenda+for+global+collective+action&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us [Barber]
The major economic sanctions are associated with trade, and although trade
sanctions are often ineffective when imposed by a single country against another, they can be effective in some limited
situations.
Trade sanctions were part of the backdrop
to the Montreal Protocol to protect the stratospheric ozone layer, although compliance has been achieved without resorting to
them.
A question remains about how such trade sanctions can be squared with World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations. In
particular, it is unclear what happens when two international treaties come into conflict. In the following paragraphs, we
describe how a sanction system could potentially work, and how it could respond to a situation in which WTO obligations were
found to be inconsistent with climate treaty obligations.
The easiest context for seeing how an international compliance regime would work is if the global agreement involved
common measures (e.g., a carbon tax). If one country refused to comply with that approach, the rest of the world could simply
impose a compensating tax on the relevant nation’s exports. Indeed, the other nations could impose a punitive carbon tax -- i.e.,
a tax against the rogue nation’s exports equal to, say, three times the carbon tax that would have had to have been paid in the
first place.
The tax could even vary with the ratio of exports to domestic production, so that the total carbon tax collections collected from
the country by foreign governments would be a fixed multiple of what the country would have collected itself, had it imposed
the carbon tax.
Such a system could change the political economy of the underlying agreement,
since the interests who previously opposed the imposition of a carbon tax domestically
would have less incentive to continue such opposition.
The hardest questions are posed by potential WTO restrictions. The traditional
interpretation of WTO rules is that they do not allow discrimination on the basis of
process and production methods. This interpretation would preclude taxes based on
energy or greenhouse gas inputs. The recent shrimp-turtle case, however, raises
interesting questions about the traditional interpretation of WTO rules. In the shrimp-
turtle case,
the appellate body found that Article XX of the GATT 1994 in principle
allowed countries to impose trade sanctions on the basis of environmental concerns
outside their borders (in this case, shrimp caught outside the United States in a manner
that incidentally killed sea turtles).
The logic of the appellate body’s argument could
easily be extended to allowing nations to impose trade sanctions on rogue countries that
do not obey international climate norms.
Regardless of whether WTO regulations allow such trade sanctions, they do not
forbid them: they only allow retaliation against countries that impose sanctions outside
the WTO rules. Thus, the countries of the world could impose sanctions against a rogue
nation, knowing that the rogue nation may be entitled under the WTO rules to retaliate.
Such retaliation may not be undertaken in any case, since it would only serve to reinforce
opposition to the rogue nation. Indeed, any such “trade war” could increase public
sentiment for compliance with global norms. The danger with this approach, however, is
that excessive reliance on trade sanctions may undermine the general WTO framework and threaten global trade.
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Link – incentives
If the U.S. Turns to voluntary climate measures, the EU will compensate with
trade barriers.
Richard B. Stewart and Johnathan B. Wiener, December 03’, Practical climate change policy, http://209.85.215.104/search?
q=cache:79sojU_DGWwJ:www.hm-
treasury.gov.uk/media/7/9/Climate_paris_1.pdf+United+States+and+Kyoto+and+voluntary+and+climate+and+regulation+and+europ
e&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=30&gl=us [Barber]
The extensive literature on climate science and policy shows that climate change is a serious risk that warrants sensible global
regulatory action despite its many uncertainties. Indeed, some uncertainties, such as the risk of abrupt climate shifts, favor
more, not less, action. But climate change calls for prudent preventive approaches, not costly crash measures.
Under the international law of treaty adoption by consent, a climate policy regime must yield net benefits not only to the world
as a whole, but also to each country that participates. Because the damages from climate change and the
costs and benefits of climate protection will vary significantly across countries, designing a regime to attract participation by
all major emitters will be quite a feat.
Several studies suggest that the Kyoto Protocol, as currently structured, would probably yield expected benefits less than its
expected costs, particularly for the United States. Perhaps for this reason, the Bush administration has rejected the protocol
and proposed voluntary measures aimed at reducing U.S. GHG emissions intensity (emissions per unit of economic output),
but not necessarily reducing total emissions.
Limiting the growth of GHG emissions can, however, be prudent insurance against the risks of climate change if appropriate
regulatory policies are followed. A National Academy of Sciences report requested by the White House in 2001concluded that
rising GHG emissions from human activities are already causing Earth's atmosphere to warm and that the rate and extent of
warming will increase significantly during this century. Recent studies indicate that some initial warming and carbon
fertilization may help agriculture in some areas, including
Russia, China, and member countries of the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), but will likely have adverse effects in poorer areas. These studies also show that the
impact of greater or more rapid warming will worsen worldwide over time, including losses of 1 to 2 percent of gross domestic
product (GDP) in the United States and other OECD countries and 4 to 9 percent in Russia and most developing countries,
except China, which is forecast to gain about 2 percent of GDP. These estimates do not include the possibility of abrupt
changes in ocean currents or other earth systems.
But the Kyoto Protocol would reduce global emissions only enough to avoid a fraction of these future losses, perhaps 10
percent, amounting to a benefit of 0.1
to 0.2 percent of GDP in the United States and other industrialized countries and
0.4 to 0.9 percent of GDP elsewhere. Several economic models put the cost of meeting the Kyoto targets through wholly
domestic measures to reduce CO emissions at 1 to 3 percent of GDP in the United States and other industrialized countries,
clearly exceeding the benefits.
Smart regulatory design, however, can substantially reduce these costs. As detailed below, a comprehensive approach covering
all GHGs and sinks and full international emissions trading could in concert reduce the costs by 90 percent or more, to 0.1 to
0.3 percent of GDP, about equal to the estimated benefits.
Adding the risk of abrupt climate change and the ancillary benefits of reduction of other pollutants might make the benefits
slightly greater than the costs for the United States and would make the benefits significantly greater than the costs
globally.
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Link - incentives
STEWART AND WIENER CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE
Although staying out of Kyoto could give U.S. industry a competitive advantage over companies in other industrialized
countries that are subject to Kyoto's regulatory burdens, U.S. nonparticipation in any climate regime would also deprive U.S.
businesses of valuable commercial opportunities and impose significant business risks. If the United States joined a well-
designed climate regime, many U.S. companies could become allowance sellers by achieving low-cost GHG emission
reductions and enhancing sinks, and many U.S. firms in the financial, consulting, accounting, legal, and insurance industries
could help run emissions trading markets. These opportunities for U.S. business are likely to be foreclosed or sharply restricted
if the United States remains on the sidelines.
London, not New York, will become the center of global emissions trading; indeed, this is already starting to happen.
Ironically, the United States championed international emissions trading and the comprehensive approach for the past 12
years, but is now standing aside while others move first. Britain,
Denmark, and Norway are already launching their own domestic CO emissions trading systems, and the EU is creating a
Europe-wide trading system, also limited to CO emissions. These European CO2 emissions trading systems may become the
models for the global trading system, restricting the coverage of other gases and sinks and leaving the United States at a
disadvantage if it decides to join later.
If the United States stays out of international climate policy, U.S. businesses subject to eventual U.S. domestic emissions
limitations, as well as those with operations abroad in industrialized countries that ratify Kyoto, will be unable to enjoy the
compliance cost savings provided by international emissions trading. Worse, parties to the Kyoto Protocol, particularly in
Europe, may attempt to impose countervailing duties against imports of U.S. goods to compensate for the lower cost of
embedded GHG emissions in U.S. production; such "carbon trade wars" could seriously damage global prosperity.
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Link Incentives
Voluntary non target based Kyoto alternatives will be bashed by Europe
The Washington Post, 2/16/02 Bush Climate Plan Gets Cold Shoulder; Alternative to Kyoto Protocol Bashed on Eve of Asia Tour,
lexis [adit]
President Bush's plan for combating global warming received a frosty response around the world today, with Belgium questioning the
morality of a plan that would allow U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to continue to rise.
Bush offered incentives to companies that voluntarily slow the rise in heat-trapping gas emissions blamed for global warming, the rise
in the atmosphere's temperature. The Bush administration withdrew from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set mandatory reductions in
greenhouse gases, arguing it would harm the U.S. economy.
"It's really shocking. . . . It's a bit like saying: 'Wealth is for us today in 2002 and we will leave the problems for our children or for
people in Africa or Asia,' " said Belgium's energy minister, Olivier Deleuze, of the Green party.
Deleuze led the European Union delegation at talks last year that secured support from most of the rest of the world to push on with
the Kyoto treaty without the United States.
"It's a policy that's not very moral, I feel," Deleuze told Belgian television channel RTBF of Bush's plan, which was announced
Thursday.
Many scientists say gas emissions -- particularly carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels -- are trapping heat in the Earth's
atmosphere, risking massive climate changes that could lead to disastrous floods and droughts. The United States generates roughly
one quarter of the world's man-made greenhouse gases.
Germany's environment minister, Juergen Trittin, said Bush's plan was "disappointing" because it was voluntary and failed to set
targets for cuts by the world's biggest polluter.
"We must not slam the door for a return of the United States under the Kyoto Protocol's regime," he said. "We must not let the
country with the biggest emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide escape responsibility for protecting the global climate."
The European Union's environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, said Bush's policy could lead the United States to break a
long-standing commitment to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.
"It seems that President Bush's proposals will not lead to a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions but allow a significant increase," she
said. "This raises the question whether the U.S. will be able to meet its commitments under the [1992] U.N. Framework Convention
on Climate Change."
The United States remains a party to the 1992 climate change pact that President Bush's father signed at the Rio Earth Summit. The
convention commits developed countries to try to stabilize their greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels.
Japan, host of the Kyoto talks, said it was not "extremely happy" with the Bush plan. "It's obvious that this plan won't achieve the 7
percent reduction target which the United States had agreed to in Kyoto," Environment Minister Hiroshi Oki said.
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Link—Incentives
Incentive based reductions jacks U.S-E.U relations--they are perceived as isolationist
Francine Kiefer and Peter Spotts Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor, 2/15/02 Bush opts for incentive-based CO2 cuts,
Christian Science Monitor p.3 lexis [adit]
"The White House spent a year criticizing the Kyoto Protocol, saying it didn't do anything to solve the problem in the long term," says
Dr. Kete. "This plan doesn't solve anything either."
The White House does, however, propose mandatory cuts on another emissions issue largely
unrelated to climate: a 70 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and mercury by 2018. These are the three worst air
pollutants, and contribute to smog, acid rain, regional haze, and particle pollution. Nitrogen oxides also contribute to global warming,
but Kete says, the administration's impact on nitrogen oxides is expected to have a negligible effect in the battle against climate
change.
Even before the administration released its proposal, some of which would require congressional approval, environmental groups
were emailing reporters with blistering appraisals. It's a sign that, four months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the administration
is now open to domestic criticism.
Europeans unhappy, again
Internationally, the response to the Bush plan may not be enthusiastic either, observers say, since it still disregards past US
commitments to reduce greenhouse emissions. Nor do observers expect developed countries in Europe or Asia to see this as a viable
alternative to the Kyoto accords. "This is clearly going to be seen as more of the go-it-alone approach by the US," says Donald
Goldberg of the Center for International Environmental Law.
The timing of Bush's announcement is thought to have been influenced by the president's departure tomorrow on a five-day trip to
Asia. His first stop will be Tokyo, where the government has been anxious to see the US take some steps on greenhouse emissions.
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Link--Subsidies
Increased Subsidies ensure EU sanctions
Christian science monitor, Biofuel boondoggle: US subsidy aids Europe's drivers, 6/8/08,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0608/p02s01-usec.htm [adit]
The US importer of the load applies to the Internal Revenue Service for the credit – a dollar for each of the 9 million biodiesel gallons,
Mr. Baize calculates. The next day the tanker can set sail – dash – for Europe. There, the US importer resells the biodiesel, taking
advantage of European fuel-tax credits that, in effect, keep biodiesel prices above US prices.
"Splash-and-dash is something Congress never intended," says Baize. "It's bad for taxpayers and it ought to be fixed now."
Signs of splash-and-dash began to show up last fall. But efforts to fix the problem only began taking shape in Congress this spring
after European biodiesel manufacturers complained in March about the subsidized imports and the US biodiesel industry also
complained a month later.
"This [splash-and-dash] is something our people are aware of and that's on their radar screen," says a staff aide on the House Ways
and Means Committee, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. "It's one of the issues that's
driving closer scrutiny."
European officials are also unhappy about the practice. Such "touch and go" maneuvers could quickly become a much larger problem,
warned Raffaello Garofalo, secretary general of the European Biodiesel Board, in a March 19 letter to the European Trade
Commissioner.
European manufacturers are worried about all US biodiesel imports – not just the splash-and-dash variety – because the subsidized
fuel is flooding their markets, cutting into their domestic biodiesel business and lowering prices.
"We want really to get a fair trade and want this unfair subsidy to stop," says Mr. Garofalo in a phone interview. "The US products get
subsidies in the US, and in Europe, a double subsidy."
The industry is calling for trade sanctions against the US.
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Link—Domestic Policy
Domestic initiatives kill EU relations
BBC, 6/28/05 EU pushes binding climate deal, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4724877.stm [adit]
The European Commission's environment spokeswoman Barbara Helferrich told the BBC News website that Europe remained
committed to further legally binding reductions in emissions.
"We welcome any initiative that can combat climate change, but this has to be seen in a global context," she said.
"If it is simply technology and clean coal, it is no substitute for agreements like the Kyoto Protocol and we do not expect it to have a
real impact on climate change.
"There will have to be binding global agreements, but on what scale and what basis is yet to be decided."
The designated forum for making those decisions is the next round of United Nations climate negotiations, which opens in Montreal in
November - shortly after the Asia-Pacific grouping holds its first meeting in Adelaide.
There is concern in environmental circles that the United States and Australia will present the new pact as evidence that a "son-of-
Kyoto"-style treaty is not needed.
Europe, which for many years has been the leading pro-Kyoto force, is unlikely to agree.
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Link-must be 0 emissions
Zero-emission alternatives are the only way to maintain U.S-E.U relations
New York Times, SUZANNE DALEY, 2/15/02, Europeans Give Bush Plan on Climate Change a Tepid Reception, lexis, [adit]
Saying that any action taken to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases was at least a step in the right direction, the European Union
gave a tepid welcome today to President Bush's new proposals to tackle climate change. The Bush proposals, which are strictly
voluntary, would rely on tax credits to coax big business to pollute less. As word of the proposals began to filter out, many
environmentalists and political commentators in Europe said that Mr. Bush's plan was far too little, too late, and would not improve
his image abroad as a servant of the oil industry. The most outspoken reaction came from France, where the head of an
intergovernmental task force on global warming calling the proposals "window dressing." The expert, Philippe Meunier, said that
although it was hard to judge the new plan before knowing its details, "the total volunteerism approach makes us worry." "It lacks
credibility," Mr. Meunier added. "We worry that without sanctions it just won't work." He asserted that while the plan was a step in
the right direction, it showed that the United States sought change "at no cost and in a way that would not in any way challenge the
American lifestyle and especially its consumption." Echoing the concerns of most other specialists reacting today, Mr. Meunier
evoked the Kyoto Protocol, the widely accepted treaty that would require emissions cuts by 2010 to well below their 1990 levels. The
Bush plan might "destabilize" support for the Kyoto pact, which is awaiting ratification. As Mr. Meunier put it, "You may have
countries that say, why should we who are poorer do anything?" The Bush administration's rejection of the protocol last March caused
an outcry in Europe and came to be seen here as another example of America's refusal to limit its options in almost any sphere. When
he rejected the treaty, Mr. Bush called its targets arbitrary, its schedule too costly to meet and its terms unfair. Nonetheless, no other
country has chosen to abandon it. The voluntary measures in the plan Mr. Bush unveiled today would, if followed, slow but not halt
the growth in emissions of heat-trapping gases linked to global warming. It would use $4.6 billion in tax credits over the next five
years to encourage companies and individuals to limit those emissions. In Brussels, a European Commission spokeswoman, Pia
Ahrenkilde-Hansen, said, "We feel that the multilateral approach is the best way to face up to this tremendous challenge." She said
that the European Union still hoped the United States would return to the Kyoto pact. In Britain, Chris Hewett of the Institute for
Public Policy Research, added his voice to criticism of the plan as not enough. He said Britain had proved "that you can cut emissions
and still have a healthy economy," adding that there was no "inextricable link" between carbon dioxide emissions and economic
growth. Some green groups said they were suspicious of the timing of the White House announcement, just days before Mr. Bush is
scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in Japan. Japan has so far remained committed to the Kyoto pact, but it has
made no secret of the fact that it will have difficulty meeting its targets. Hiroshi Oki, the new Japanese environment minister, said it
would be best for the United States to return to the the protocol. But, he said that "our joint efforts" must not be halted by
disagreement on that point. The only real praise for the Bush administration had nothing to do with the environmental proposal. In
Germany, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a member of the
government's advisory council, made a point of citing a second American plan announced today, one that affects emissions but not
global warming. He hailed Mr. Bush's call for mandatory restrictions on three power plant pollutants -- mercury, sulfur dioxide and
nitrogen oxides -- as "a great air pollution policy." "A wonderful policy," Mr. Schellnhuber added. "But the wrong target
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In a dramatic about-face that reflects the important influence of the energy industry in the White House, President Bush has
abandoned an explicit campaign pledge to set limits to CO2 emissions. The decision, against the advice of his director of the
Environmental Protection Agency, Ms Christine Todd-Whitman, sets the new administration on a collision course with Europe in the
Kyoto climate-change talks. Only days ago Ms Todd-Whitman was assuring the country that Mr Bush would keep his election
promise. "George Bush was very clear during the course of the campaign that he believes in a multi-pollutant strategy, and that
includes CO 2", she told CNN's Crossfire. "He has also been very clear that the science is good on global warming." During the
election Mr Bush even criticised his opponent, Mr Al Gore, for proposing voluntary emission curbs. "In Texas we have done better
with mandatory reductions and I believe the nation can do better," he claimed. But on Tuesday, in a letter to four Republican senators,
Mr Bush claimed that "new" evidence from the Energy Department showed that curbs on CO2 emissions would lead to a move away
from coal to gas and result in higher energy costs. "I do not believe . . . that the government should impose on power plants mandatory
emission reductions for carbon dioxide," he told them. The decision was a bitter disappointment to environmentalists who believe that
CO2 is a major factor in global warming and was described by one Democratic member of the House, Mr Henry Waxman, as a
"breathtaking betrayal". And Mr Waxman pointed the finger firmly at the influence of coal and oil lobbies on a White House. Mr Bush
and Vice-President Bill Cheney are both former oil executives as are several senior members of the Cabinet, and Mr Bush will have
been reminded that he owes the coal producers of West Virginia, won by him on promises that coal would be made a priority by his
Administration. Mr Bush has made repeated play of the need for the US to become more self-sufficient in energy production by such
controversial means as drilling in the Alaskan National Wilderness Park. For energy interests the policy on CO 2 jarred with that. Mr
David Doniger, senior lawyer for the Natural Re sources Defence Council, said: "Bush has turned his back on the consensus of the
science which shows that global warming is an alarming problem. "You just can't deal with global warming unless you deal with
power plants. He's snuffed out the spark of what we had hoped would be a progressive environmental policy. He's caved in to the coal
industry's medieval view of the science," he said. Internationally Mr Bush's decision will be viewed with dismay. Talks on
implementation of the Kyoto protocol on emission limits were postponed last month at US request after its negotiators said they
needed more time to prepare. That had given rise to hope that the US, the main obstacle to binding commitments to greenhouse gas
emission reductions, would be more forthcoming. The Kyoto Protocol has been signed by more than 100 countries but has not been
ratified by any industrialised nation. Its final adoption would require the US and three dozen other industrialised countries to cut
combined emissions by 2012 to 5 per cent below their 1990 levels. The US produces a fourth of the world's emissions with 5 per cent
of the world's population. Bargaining broke down in November at The Hague, where the EU rejected a US compromise position.
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Timothy E. Deal, senior VP for the US council for international business, Jan 08, WTO rules sand procedures and their implication for
the Kyoto Protocol, http://209.85.215.104/search?
q=cache:mr_7GUxZIywJ:www.uscib.org/docs/wto_and_kyoto_2008.pdf+The+World+Trade+Organization%27s+view:
+emissions+reduction+in+a+free+trade+world+Arthur+Appleton&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us [Barber]
“In order to meet their Kyoto emission targets with minimum adverse effects on their economy, it is highly likely that Annex 1
governments with differentiated legal and political systems might pursue these policies in such a way as to unfairly favor
domestic producers over foreign ones.
Such differential treatment could occur in governing eligibility for, and the amount of, the subsidy, in establishing energy
efficiency standards, in the determination of the category of ecolabled products and the procedures of establishing ecolabels, in
the specifications in tenders, and in specifying condition(s) for participating in government procurement bids. In (the) case
where a country unilaterally imposes a carbon tax, it may adjust taxes at the border to mitigate (the) competitiveness effects of
cheaper imports not subject to a similar level of the carbon in the country of origin.
Measure(s) of this sort may well raise complex questions with respect to the WTO consistency and the conditions under which
border taxes can be adjusted to accommodate a loss of international competitiveness.”
2
The possibility of a clash over climate change commitments under the Kyoto Protocol and WTO rules arises because of the
U.S. decision to abandon Kyoto. Strong resentment over this action, particularly in Europe, could lead the EU, and perhaps
others, to undertake actions to penalize American and other non-Annex 1 firms for alleged competitive advantages resulting
from their non-adherence to Kyoto, although the probability of such action is low at the present time.
In 2002, the United States Council for International Business (USCIB) produced an earlier version of this paper. At the time,
the notion of trade action in the form of a carbon tax against non-Kyoto compliant countries was highly speculative in nature
and supported mainly by NGOs such as Greenpeace International and Friends of the Earth
Europe. Since then, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have talked more openly about carbon taxes.
At the time, the official EU position was outlined in a policy statement posted on its website:
“The EU also wants to clarify that measures taken to tackle environmental problems under Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs), such as the Kyoto Protocol on Climate change, are not contrary to WTO rules.
For example, problems could arise if a country imposed a trade measure for environmental purposes on another WTO Member
that had not signed the MEA. Could the country affected use WTO rules to overrule the trade measures? The EU wants WTO
Members to agree that this should not be allowed to happen.”
3
But some European politicians have suggested more aggressive action. In November 2006, then French Prime Minister
Dominque de Ville pin stated, “Europe has to use all its weight to stand up to environmental dumping”, adding that France
would urge its European partners to study “the principle of a carbon tax on the import of industrial products from countries
which refuse to commit themselves to the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.” That same year, in a letter to EU Commission President
Barroso, EU Enterprise and Industry Commissioner Günter Verhheugen backed de Villepin’s proposal, saying that if Europe
remained alone in cutting emissions, there was a risk that companies could shift their production to countries where standards
were more lax. He added that border tax adjustments for developed countries that have not implemented Kyoto could balance
out such effects
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Both the United States and the European Union (including the member states) have adopted many laws and regulations designed to
protect their environments. Indeed, they have been in the forefront internationally in developing such rules. However, the different
regulatory approaches behind these rules have led to disputes. Although disagreements to date have been limited in both number and
scope, some have been especially persistent. Given the importance of environmental protection to both the European and U.S. publics,
the political sensitivity of these disagreements is likely to increase, leading to greater transatlantic tensions in the future. Moreover,
these regulatory issues have a significant international dimension, as the standards and practices that develop out of the two dominant
markets will inevitably affect those adopted by multilateral standard-setting bodies and international corporations.
The disagreement over the Kyoto Protocol on climate change is only the most visible example of transatlantic conflict over the
environment. Other, lower profile cases — over hushkits for airplanes, electronic waste recycling, persistent organic pollutants, and
ozone-depleting substances — have also generated serious tensions. These cases proved to be particularly complex because of the
multitude of actors involved, most with primarily domestic orientations and agendas, and because of the impact of continually
changing technologies. Finally, while the United States and the EU often agree in their assessment of the risk, they sometimes use
incompatible mechanisms to manage that risk and approach implementation and enforcement very differently
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The entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change on 16 February 2005 has highlighted the political divide between the coalition of industrialized countries that support
the Kyoto treaty and plan to implement stringent climate policies, and the few industrialized countries that are unwilling to do
so.
This situation has a likely consequence: energy prices, in particular between the USA and Europe, will continue to develop in
different directions.
Current trends in European energy and climate policies are expected to result in further increases in the price of energy, while
US prices will remain unaffected by the current climate policies of the Bush administration.
Price increases in Europe may be brought about, in particular, by environmental taxation.
Up until now, different schemes of energy or carbon taxes have been introduced in Austria, Belgium,
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden and the
UK.
Energy prices in the USA are already substantially lower than in most countries with sizeable energy taxes. For instance, the
price of heavy fuel oil for industry in the USA is about one-fifth lower than the average price in a sample of nine other OECD
countries, all of which have some form of energy taxation (see Table 1). Regarding electricity prices for industry, prices in the
USA are lower by as much as one-third. This price gap between the USA and other industrialized countries is more remarkable
given that countries with energy tax regimes already grant numerous exemptions for energy-intensive industries. Without such
exemptions, price effects of domestic
energy taxation would be higher. Some countries, such as Germany, are also planning to significantly reduce the number of
exemptions
Such price differentials created or reinforced by environmental taxation have triggered strong political pressure against
European governments and the European Commission in the past, and they are likely to continue to do so. Such political
pressure, in particular from industry, may obstruct European environmental policies and become a threat for climate protection
strategies and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. This in turn might jeopardize, or at least complicate, the
implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in those countries that have ratified it.
A number of different options are available for European governments to offset real or perceived impacts of energy taxes on
competition.
Most prominent is the partial or full exemption from the tax and the granting of reduced tax rates. Although such tax
exemptions for energy-intensive or export-oriented industries can eliminate competitive disadvantages or reduce the burden
below a threshold of concern, exemptions also give rise to significant problems.
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In this article, we therefore analyze an alternative measure that could offset competitive burdens on the global marketplace
without watering down the environmental objective of reducing carbon dioxide emissions: the adjustment of energy taxes at
the border. There are at present no such border adjustment schemes on energy taxes in place, nor do we expect such
adjustments to be enacted soon. Instead, we are interested in the question of whether such border tax adjustments would be
allowable under world trade law if, at some time in the future, European decision- makers would deem such measures as being
necessary to protect (possibly more stringent) European climate policies from competition by non-European industrialized
countries. This information about a hypothetical future situation is highly relevant for the present development of policies, and
it might prove to be important information for climate negotiators in both Europe and the USA.
It is important to note that we draw a distinction between border tax adjustments vis-à-vis non- European industrialized countries, on the one hand,
and developing countries, on the other. We draw this distinction on both fairness and legal grounds. On fairness grounds, certain advantages for
developing countries through the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol are probably justified given the historic overuse of the atmosphere in the
course of Northern industrialization and the persistent higher per-capita emissions in the North. On legal grounds, such advantages seem justified, if
not required, by the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and capabilities as enshrined in Article 3:1 of the 1992 UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, as well as in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. These legal documents influence the
interpretation of world trade law, since its interpretation must take into account widely ratified multilateral treaties concluded by WTO parties in
related domains (see Biermann,2001, on this question).
In addition, possible environmental leakage effects to developing countries can be addressed through existing mechanisms, such as the Global
Environment Facility that has been created to reimburse the agreed incremental costs of developing countries in implementing the climate
convention and a few other agreements.
Thus, border tax adjustments might be implemented – if justifiable under world trade law, as will be analysed in the remainder
of this article – against industrialized countries that gain trade advantages through persistently lower energy prices owing to
insufficient implementation of climate policies. Border tax adjustments should be avoided, however, against developing
countries, while other policies to address carbon leakage, such as financial and technological
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European UnionThe European Parliament has passed resolutions calling upon the European Commission to consider the
possibility of imposing offsetting tariffs on imports from countries that are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol.The Commission’s
reaction has been to oppose such measures on the grounds that they risked exacerbating tensions in trade relations with the US,
particularly at a time when trade relations were already strained and trans-Atlantic relations more generally were unusually
conflicted over a broad range of issues. In addition, there were concerns that such measures would undermine support in the
US for increased EU-US cooperation on climate change issues. Finally, there were concerns that such a tariff might be
challenged in a WTO dispute settlement case, and the outcome of such a case would inevitably be uncertain. However, before
leaving office in 2007, French President Chirac and Prime Minister deVillepin suggested again that such measures be
undertaken. European Trade Commissioner Mandelson responded, however, that this would not be helpful. For now, the issue
is quiescent at least in public. However, since it is of continuing concern to the European cement industry and other greenhouse
gas-intensive industries, the issue is not likely to go away. United States Similar issues appeared in 2007 on the agenda in the
US in the context of the introduction of climate change bills in the Congress. As in the EU, it is a combination of international
competitiveness and climate change free-rider concerns that have put the issue on the active agenda in the US Congress. As of
the beginning of September 2007, the prospects for the many climate bills under consideration in the House and Senate were
uncertain. However, whatever the outcome of votes in the two houses on these bills and any Presidential action that might
ensue, it is clear that there is much political support for some kind of border measure provision in climate legislation that
includes a mandatory cap-and-trade system. There is a key difference in the form of the measure that is on the agenda in the
US, as compared with the tariff proposal in Europe. In particular, the proposal in the US is to require US importers in some
circumstances to purchase GHG emission allowances. Such a measure could be less vulnerable than a tariff to challenge in the
WTO, because it could more clearly be considered an environmental measure that would qualify as an exception under GATT
Article XX(g), which allows measures “relating to the conservation of exhaustible natural resources.”1One US legislative
proposal of special interest that was under consideration in September 2007 was Senate Bill S. 17 , which is commonly know
as the Bingaman Bill or Bingaman-Specter bill after its sponsors. It includes Title V, “Periodic Review and International
Leadership,” which requires reviews every five years of “whether each of the five largest trading partners”2of the US has taken
“comparable action” to limit GHG emissions (section 501(2)(B)(i)). “Comparable action” is definedas “greenhouse gas
regulatory programs, requirements, and other measures adopted by a foreign country that are determined by the President to be,
in combination, comparable in effect to the action taken by the United States to limit greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to this
Act, after taking into account the level of economic development of the foreign country” (section 502(a)(2)). US importers of
“covered” GHG-intensive goods from countries that have been found not to have taken comparable actions must purchase
“international reserve allowances” (i.e. GHG emission credits) to be issued by the US government. A “covered good” is one
“that the President identifies, by rule, as a greenhouse gas intensive good that is closely related to goods, the cost of production
of which in the United States is affected by this Act” (section 502(a)(5)).3These and many other technicalities of the bill are of
course subject to revision in Congressional deliberations and in any negotiations that may occur between members of Congress
and the President
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Link - technology
U.S. Focus to technology p/o Europe
EurActiv.com, 5-27-05, Heroes or Villains EU and US policy on climate change, http://www.euractiv.com/en/sustainability/heroes-vs-
villains-eu-us-policies-climate-change/article-140082 [Barber]
America's focus on technology has gone down badly in Europe, explains CEPS's Christian Egenhofer because it was seen as
trying to postpone the issue for the long term and wait for another 50 years.
Egenhofer agrees this could partly explain the US attitude but he believes there is merit in developing technologies. "If you
look at the targets that need to be achieved under the UNFCCC, then you will need breakthrough technologies by 2050. And
you don't get these without putting money into research and collaboration projects. They do not develop on their own."
In the EU, the approach has been to "push" new technologies by putting a cap on industry's CO2 emissions and setting up a
market for individual plants to buy or sell the CO2 emission allowances they were granted. The Commission says the scheme
also has a "market pull" component in the sense that it makes low carbon technologies more competitive compared to the more
polluting ones.
"You get a lot of improvement of existing technologies the EU way by increasing the price of carbon which pushes technology
improvements, but you do not get the breakthrough technologies in this way," comments Egenhofer. With their long-term
research programme and massive investments, Egenhofer believes the US "has got something right there".
In the EU, the CO2 constraint placed on individual industrial plants have so far been too low to give enough incentives for
breakthrough technologies, because they come at a too high a cost, Egenhofer continues. "In that sense, it does not get you
there, you really need breakthrough technologies," he says.
There are of course renewable sources of energy which are being pushed by the EU with the aim of increasing its share of
electricity production to 22.1% by 2010. But they will not play a big role, even in 20 to 30 years, Egenhofer points out.
Renewables are of course important, but their cost needs to be brought down and "the only way of doing this is by getting them
onto the market" thanks to appropriate support. "But obviously, if you put subsidies into coal, the renewables will become
competitive later, he adds, saying EU countries are still subsidising coal to the tune of 20 billion euros a year. "In the US, this
is not an issue, they are exporting."
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The U.S. was also adamantly opposed to language on targets and timetables for reducing fossil fuel consumption. In the end,
the U.S. was successful in thwarting European attempts to set a goal of having 15% of countries’ energy provided by
renewable sources by 2015 (Speth 2003). The U.S. was also wary of expansion of scope of two principles contained in the Rio
Declaration—the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (Principle 7) and the precautionary ‘approach’
(Principle 15). The U.S. had been reluctant to include these principles in the Rio Declaration and worked hard to limit their
scope. Since Rio, the U.S. has worked hard to contain the influence of these two principles and has constantly denied their
status as customary international law (Brunnée 2004, p. 629). The long-standing U.S. resistance to the precautionary principle
is rooted in the concern that it might serve as the pretext for other countries to restrict the import of U.S. goods. Reluctance to
embrace the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities is derived from concern that this could imply that the U.S.
bears the legal responsibility for global environmental problems, such as climate change, and that any action taken by
developing countries must be financially and technically supported by developed countries (Brunnée 2004, pp. 629–630).
Finally, the U.S. made concerted efforts to promote the Type II outcomes—voluntary public-private partnerships—in
Johannesburg. Rather than relying on negotiated agreements, the U.S. argued forcefully that private sector engagement was the
best way to promote implementation of sustainable development agreements. Critics of this approach, including Norway and
members of the G–77 (see Rosendal and Najam, this volume), felt that the partnerships initiative was a way of masking the
failure of governments to agree on meaningful action and enable governments to abdicate responsibility to sustainable
development. Others argued that the lack of any international review process for the Type II outcomes (this was resisted by the
U.S.), meant that there was no accountability and that these partnerships may result in all talk and no action. The U.S., on the
other hand, felt that these partnerships could harness the billions of private dollars that circulate the globe and far outweigh
public development assistance (Brunnée 2004, p. 635).
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The Bush proposals, which are strictly voluntary, would rely on tax credits to coax big business to pollute less. As word of the
proposals began to filter out, many environmentalists and political commentators in Europe said that Mr. Bush's plan was far too little,
too late, and would not improve his image abroad as a servant of the oil industry.
The most outspoken reaction came from France, where the head of an intergovernmental task force on global warming calling the
proposals ''window dressing.''
The expert, Philippe Meunier, said that although it was hard to judge the new plan before knowing its details, ''the total volunteerism
approach makes us worry.''
''It lacks credibility,'' Mr. Meunier added. ''We worry that without sanctions it just won't work.''
He asserted that while the plan was a step in the right direction, it showed that the United States sought change ''at no cost and in a
way that would not in any way challenge the American lifestyle and especially its consumption.''
Echoing the concerns of most other specialists reacting today, Mr. Meunier evoked the Kyoto Protocol, the widely accepted treaty that
would require emissions cuts by 2010 to well below their 1990 levels.
The Bush plan might ''destabilize'' support for the Kyoto pact, which is awaiting ratification.
As Mr. Meunier put it, ''You may have countries that say, why should we who are poorer do anything?''
The Bush administration's rejection of the protocol last March caused an outcry in Europe and came to be seen here as another
example of America's refusal to limit its options in almost any sphere.
When he rejected the treaty, Mr. Bush called its targets arbitrary, its schedule too costly to meet and its terms unfair.
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PRESIDENT BUSH announced last night a "new environmental path for America", his alternative to the Kyoto protocol he
summarily rejected last year, to the dismay and anger of European nations and other allies.
Mr Bush outlined a voluntary scheme for reducing the rate of growth in America's greenhouse gas emissions that "will benefit the
entire world".
His proposals, which involved encouraging American companies to comply with regulations to slow the increase in pollution of the
skies, were condemned by his critics.
Environmentalists in Britain said the Bush plan would mean a rise in emissions over the next decade, instead of the cut required by the
Kyoto treaty.
The plan is aimed at cutting greenhouse gas "intensity" - emissions per unit of gross domestic product - by 18 per cent over 10 years.
But the Bush administration's forecast rate of growth in GDP over the next decade is 38 per cent, meaning that emissions will rise by
14 per cent.
The treaty signed by Mr Bush's father in 1992, the Climate Change Convention, to which America remains a party, requires
signatories to put in place policies and measures with the aim of returning to their 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
John Lanchbery, head of climate change policy at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "This is not an alternative to
Kyoto but a travesty of it. It is aptly named the 'global warming plan' because that is precisely what it will lead to."
But the European Union gave a cautious welcome. "It is positive that the US administration is realising that there needs to be
something done about climate change, but we feel that the multilateral approach is the best way to face up to this tremendous
challenge."
The 1997 Kyoto protocol, which Britain and 178 other countries have signed, but not ratified, calls for countries to return to 1990
levels by 2010.
The protocol was endorsed by Bill Clinton when he was president, but not ratified by the Senate. The Bush White House rejected it on
two grounds, both linked to American jobs.
First, the administration objected that the protocol did not apply to such major polluting nations as China and India and would give
them an unfair competitive advantage.
Second, Mr Bush expressed scepticism about the science that linked greenhouse gases to climate change and refused to risk thousands
of American jobs by imposing restrictions costing companies hundreds of millions of pounds.
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Under Mr. Bush's plan, the United States would gather leaders of 15 developed and developing nations that are the leading
emitters of heat-trapping gases and the largest consumers of energy. Their objective: Develop a long-term emissions-reduction
goal that, according to administration officials, is "aspirational" rather than binding. Countries would then develop their own
sets of internal programs to achieve the overall goal.
Bush unveiled the plan on the eve of this year's Group of 8 summit, set to start Wednesday in Heiligendamm, Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will chair the meeting, has put out drafts of a final communiqué that commit G-8
members to doing their "fair share" to reach specific emissions goals by 2050.
Her effort is driven in no small part by three recent reports on global warming, its effects, and strategies for reducing emissions
of greenhouse gases – mainly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuel. The reports, which aim to inform policymakers as they
craft ways to reduce human influence on climate, were issued earlier this year by the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC).
During the run-up to the G-8 meeting, the Bush administration has come under intense criticism from environmental groups
and some European officials. The White House rejected the wording of large sections of the draft's climate provisions. It
argued that the offending elements run counter to Bush's policy on dealing with global warming.
For example, Washington's proposed changes to the draft G-8 document virtually wipe out any reference to various emissions-
reduction goals by 2050 or an objective of trying to hold global average temperature increases to about 2 degrees C. These are
based on IPCC projections of possible emissions trends and approaches that could avoid what the UN agreements refer to as
"dangerous human-made influence on climate."
It would now appear that the White House may have been trying to adjust the draft communiqué text in ways that brought it
into closer conformity with the plan Washington was preparing to announce. The White House has long rejected mandatory
targets and timetables.
Fewer friends in US's corner
Either way, some analysts say, the Bush plan is merely trying to defuse the barrage of criticism aimed its way.
"This is a transparent effort to divert attention from the president's refusal to accept any emissions-reductions proposals at [the]
G-8 summit," says Philip Clapp, head of the National Environmental Trust in Washington. "The White House is just trying to
hide the fact that the president is completely isolated among the G-8 leaders by calling vaguely for some agreement next year,
right before he leaves office."
As if to underscore that isolation, long-time Bush ally on climate, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, announced over the
weekend that his country would set an emissions target next year and set up a carbon-trading system by 2012 to help achieve it.
Both approaches have been anathema to the White House.
Others suggest the White House is attempting an end-run around any United Nations-based process for dealing with climate.
Sigmar Gabriel, the German environment minister, said Friday that the G-8 should not allow the Bush plan to become "a
Trojan horse to get past Heiligendamm and basically torpedo the international climate-protection process."
Some, though, say Washington's approach in the end may help prod a ponderous UN process. While setting an "aspirational"
goal might seem out of touch with calls for binding commitments, environmental treaties often set a broad goal, which is
turned into action through each country's process of ratification and enacting enabling legislation, said James Connaughton,
head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, at a May 31 press briefing. Citing fisheries agreements as an
example, he noted that, "You agree on goals in the international process [and] you implement them through national strategies
that include binding measures."
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New Energy News, June 01, 2008, EU – U.S. BIOFUEL TRADE WAR?,
http://newenergynews.blogspot.com/2008/06/eu-us-biofuel-trade-war.html
The EC is threatening to put a duty on U.S. biodiesel imports if “splash and dash” is not discontinued, although public
statements remain muted. Unnamed EU diplomat: "The Commission is in contact with the United States to clarify certain
details regarding U.S. production…" The U.S. Congress looked into closing down this abominable practice in the 2007 energy
bill but “somehow” the loophole in the biodiesel subsidy left it in place. If Congress doesn’t close the loophole soon, it risks
starting a trade war with the EU. The situation is urgent for the European biodiesel industry. Linda McAvan, Labour MP,
UK:"My fear is that by the time we get something done, the European industry will be out of business."
Threats to trade risk relations collapse; it’s the NUCLEAR BOMB of climate
negotiations
Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst and write for BBC News, January 22, 2008, Barroso trade threat
on climate, BBC news, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7201835.stm
He said foreign firms should be forced to purchase the same EU carbon allowances European firms would have to buy, thereby
leveling the industrial playing field. The threat of trade measures is the nuclear bomb of climate negotiations - and the
commission president said he very much hoped it would not be used. He said his preferred option was for a comprehensive
global treaty on emissions.
EU has been supporting sanctions on the US for awhile, they wont hesitate
Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst and write for BBC News, January 22, 2008, Barroso trade threat
on climate, BBC news, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7201835.stm
The idea of climate trade sanctions against nations such as the United States has long been promoted by the French. They say it
is unfair for Europe's firms to bear a financial risk because of the EU's leadership on a global issue. They believe the right
measures would be acceptable to the WTO, which in some cases allows countries to impose charges on environmental grounds
Robert Collier, May 2, 2008, Can Green Trade Tariffs Combat Climate Change?
http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/commentary/data/000051
After the inconclusive end of the UN led Bali talks on the global environment, worry has grown among U.S. and European
industries—especially iron, steel, cement, glass, chemicals, and pulp and paper—that any new climate treaty would put them at
a big disadvantage against their fast-growing competitors in China. In response, the U.S. Congress is moving to create a system
of trade sanctions that would levy heavy taxes on imports from other major greenhouse gas emitters. Ironically, the American
plan is taking shape even before the United States takes any action to reduce its own emissions, inviting charges of hypocrisy,
violation of international law, and threatening a major trade war.
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Trade disputes between the U.S. and E.U. could easily escalate to trade wars.
Toronto Star, November 13th, ‘3
(World trade wars are on the horizon and it's a time for Canadian leadership; If the global trading system fails, the world faces the risk
of a major recession, p. Factiva)
The world is closer to trade wars than it has been for many years. This is bad news because trade wars are highly destructive to
jobs and growth. Once launched, they inevitably escalate, generating a vicious cycle of retaliation and response.This is what
happened during the 1930s, making the Great Depression much worse. It was why, after The Second World War, that many nations,
including Canada, worked to create a new trade regime to lower trade barriers and establish a procedure for dealing with trade
disputes. This was the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT, which in 1994 became the World Trade Organization
(WTO). The trigger for such a trade war this time could come from an increasingly protectionist United States and a European Union
that finds itself at odds with the United States on many issues, from the war in Iraq to the Kyoto agreement on climate change.
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EU and US trade key to relations. – Trade relations heavily influence political relations.
European Policy Center 26 July 2002 “EU-US Economic Disputes: There is More to Trade than Goods
and Services” http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/eu-us-economic-disputes-trade-goods-services/article-
116971)
Regardless of which path is pursued, the key to regaining stability in transatlantic trade relations is an increased understanding
between the two societies. Stu Eizenstat and Hugo Paemen in their piece in the Financial Times London, of July 25th, 2002
suggested several steps to reach this objective, including a one-year suspension of the filing of new WTO cases and the
drafting of a common economic goal and work programme to achieve it. This alone, however, is not enough. Congress and the
European Parliament, as respective legislative bodies, should intensify information sharing and try to achieve a further
harmonization of legal standards and trade laws. At the same time Europeans must double their efforts to explain the
precautionary principle to the US so that the deep concerns at the heart of the new philosophical trade disputes are recognized
and taken seriously by their transatlantic partner. Finally, both powers must realize that trade and politics no longer are easily
separated. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Trade today is the only area in which the EU and the US deal as equals. But if
Americans and Europeans can keep in mind the benefits reaped from multilateral economic cooperation and transfer the
lessons learned here into the political sphere, the basis for a new transatlantic relationship might well be laid.
European Policy Center 26 July 2002 ( “EU-US Economic Disputes: There is More to Trade than Goods and
Services” http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/eu-us-economic-disputes-trade-goods-services/article-116971)
The EU-US trade relationship is of great importance in today's global economic system. Not only do bilateral economic
relations between these two economic giants make up over 40% of world trade, but their trade relationship also greatly
influences political cooperation between the two unions. As Leon Brittan, former EU commissioner for trade recently wrote,
there is a loose linkage between economic and political cooperation and partnership. If serious strains arise on one side of the
relationship, there is always a risk that the other will suffer. The US-EU trade relationship draws wider circles, however, and
also serves an important signalling effect to the world trading system as a whole. Indeed, it is difficult to move the global trade
agenda forward when the EU and US pull on opposite strands.There is currently a long list of US-EU trade disputes ranging
from unresolved issues, such as the EU refusal to allow imports of hormone treated beef (despite a contrary WTO ruling), to
those disputes that are only just about to erupt, such as the potential row over the imposition of tariffs on US steel imports.
Most recently, the EU has won a case against the US for its Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) Law, which bestows special tax
breaks on US companies in the exporting business. The EU was granted the right to impose sanctions worth up to $4 billion -
the largest award in WTO history. For the status and a brief summary of the 11 currently active bilateral US-EU cases in the
WTO please refer to the Annex below. Even though EU-US trade accounts for less than 22% of EU trade, it comprises over
47% of the EU's WTO disputes. By contrast, the EU currently has not a single WTO dispute with its preferential partners in
Europe and Africa, although 32% of its trade takes place with these countries. These numbers point out that, even though the
EU and US try to settle their trade disagreements in various informal and formal bilateral settings, they still depend heavily on
the WTO dispute resolution mechanism to solve their most contentious problems.
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The United States and the European Union (EU) have agreed to expand economic ties by cutting barriers to trade and investment and
liberalizing restrictions on air travel. Joint commitments on a broad range of economic and security issues were signed April 30 during
the annual U.S.-EU summit in Washington.President Bush, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President
Jose Manuel Barroso signed the trans-Atlantic economic partnership plan under which the two trading partners will establish a
framework for business integration by streamlining regulatory standards that are often different between the trans-Atlantic partners. “It
is a commitment to eliminating barriers to trade. It is recognition that the closer that the United States and the EU become, the better
off our people become,” Bush said at a joint press conference with the European leaders after their meeting. As part of the framework,
the United States and EU will set up the "Trans-Atlantic Economic Council" to push regulatory convergence in nearly 40 areas,
including intellectual property, financial services and the automotive industry. Merkel, whose country holds the rotating EU and G8
presidency, said the agreement is a “significant step forward” for trade partners that exchange more than $2 billion in goods and
services across the Atlantic every day. In addition to the United States and Germany, the G8 includes the United Kingdom, France,
Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia. Barroso said the agreement will help fight protectionism and isolationism by getting rid of “artificial
barriers to trade and investment” through the “harmonization of standards.” In addition, all three leaders stressed their commitment to
bringing the long-stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations to a successful outcome. "I'm under no
illusions as to how hard it will be to achieve the objective, but the first thing is there must be a firm commitment by the leadership to
get a deal," Bush said.
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Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and director
of the Center on Congress at Indiana University, 6/30/08, Treading carefully in trans-
Atlantic, relationshttp://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20080630/OPINION12/806300312/1002/opinion [SD]
It's the world's largest economic bloc with a GDP of $16 trillion, and its once-lethargic economies are growing faster than America's
with lower budget deficits. The Euro continues to appreciate against the dollar, unemployment is falling, and the EU is reducing its
dependence on foreign energy.
Despite longtime U.S. support for European integration, there are real differences over: Iraq, the broader Middle East, the death
penalty, and climate change, among others. But keeping trans-Atlantic relations in good order is a strategic interest of the highest
importance for both partners.
Germany and France are among Iran's four largest import-partners. While the U.S. should engage Iran directly for diplomatic non-
proliferation efforts to succeed, transatlantic coordination is essential.
Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and director
of the Center on Congress at Indiana University, 6/30/08, Treading carefully in trans-
Atlantic, relationshttp://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20080630/OPINION12/806300312/1002/opinion [SD]
Turkey's increasingly dynamic economy, its vibrant democracy, and its growing clout in foreign affairs illustrate its tremendous value
as an ally. The U.S. would welcome Turkey's further integration into the EU, but many Europeans express reluctance or outright
opposition.
Despite these challenges, the future of U.S.-European relations is not bleak. Our alliance is rooted in common values, interests, and
strong economic ties, including the world's largest bilateral trade relationship, measuring roughly $3 trillion in goods and services.
The foundations of our alliance are unshakeable, and the opportunities for its leaders are great.
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Impacts
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These transatlantic investments have proved very profitable. In 2003, while the media reported that Americans were pouring Bordeaux
wine down the drain to protest Paris' position on the war in Iraq, corporate America saw its investment inflows and profits from
France surge to the highest levels in nearly a decade: $2.4 billion and $l.7 billion, respectively. Profits earned by U.S. affiliates in
Europe soared to a record $77 billion, and U.S. investments in Europe jumped by 30 percent to $87 billion. Large U.S. technology
firms, such as Microsoft and Intel, predict that half of their global revenues will come from Europe in 2005. Thus, U.S. business
leaders say that the EU's 450 million affluent consumers still form the largest pool of purchasing power in the world. They also
say that economic self-interest should be enough to persuade both Democrats and Republicans in the United States to want to
protect the Atlantic partnership--all the more so because the combined Economic power of the United States and Europe would
give them enormous leverage to deal with major global challenges. Despite the billions of dollars already invested on both sides,
the full potential of the U.S.-European economic relationship is not yet realized. Four big challenges remain. The first is
managing the Western world's worsening jobs crisis (which is partly caused by outsourcing to cheap-wage places such as China and
India) without resorting to the kind of draconian protectionist measures that provoked the Great Depression. Second, as the world's
major oil, coal, and gas consumers, the United States and Europe urgently need to consider joint energy and environmental strategies
to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and curtail greenhouse gas emissions. Third, they must promptly conclude the Doha Round
of global trade negotiations by agreeing to cut much of their $300 billion in farm export subsidies, which harm producers in
developing countries and exacerbate the disparity between rich and poor nations. Finally, they must
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Nuclear War
Walter Russell Mead, 1992, New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer, p. 30.
The failure to develop an international system to hedge against the possibility of worldwide depression- will open their eyes
to their folly. Hundreds of millions-billions-of people around the world have pinned their hopes on the international market
economy. They and their leaders have embraced market principles-and drawn closer to the West-because they believe that
our system can work for them. But what if it can't? What if the global economy stagnates, or even shrinks? In that case, we
will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia. China. India-these countries
with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and
Japan did in the 1930's.
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This hardly exhausts the lists of threats to our security and well-being in the coming years and decades. In the former Yugoslavia
nationalist aggression tears at the stability of Europe and could easily spread. The flow of illegal drugs intensifies through increasingly
powerful international crime syndicates that have made common cause with authoritarian regimes and have utterly corrupted the
institutions of tenuous, democratic ones. Nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life
on Earth, the global ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are
associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality, accountability, popular
sovereignty, and openness.
LESSONS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to
war with one another. They do not aggress against their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic
governments do not ethnically "cleanse" their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies
do not sponsor terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.
Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable
climates for investment. They are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own citizens, who organize to
protest the destruction of their environments. They are better bets to honor international treaties since they value legal obligations and
because their openness makes it much more difficult to breach agreements in secret. Precisely because, within their own borders, they
respect competition, civil liberties, property rights, and the rule of law, democracies are the only reliable foundation on which a new
world order of international security and prosperity can be built.
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The US and EU are cooperating on the Middle East Peace Process now
Dalia Dassa Kaye, political scientist and a member of the research staff in the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND,
Winter 03/04, Bound to Cooperate? Transatlantic Policy in the Middle East, Washington Quarterly,
Despite continued policy differences on the Arab-Israeli peace process, mutual concern about the negative effects of continued
bloodshed on the wider Middle East provides another basis for transatlantic agreement. Even before the Iraq war, the
deteriorating situation on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories in the aftermath of the outbreak of the second
Intifada in September 2000 and the unwillingness of the United States fully to engage in the peacemaking process
between Arabs and Israelis at the start of the Bush administration led to the formation of the Middle East Quartet
(comprising the United States, the EU, the UN, and Russia) in the summer of 2002 and its subsequent road map for Middle
East peace. The United States and Europe have never before coordinated so closely on the Middle East peace process,
even if the United States is still the pivotal player. Considering the historical rifts across the Atlantic on peace process issues,
the development of the Quartet is notable. The Europeans have finally obtained a political, not just economic, place at the
peace process table while the gap appears to be narrowing between the two sides’ visions of a final settlement to the Arab-
Israeli conflict. Both sides have moved closer to the other’s positions: the United States now supports a peace outcome (a two-
state solution), not just a peace process (although many Europeans would like the United States to specify the contours of a
final-status agreement, as occurred in the Clinton administration), while Europe has actively moved toward U.S. positions on
Palestinian reform. The United States and Europe continue to disagree on the question of engaging Palestinian leader Yasser
Arafat (agreement among EU member states on this question is unanimous), but the EU supported U.S. efforts to promote
reform of thePalestinian Authority (PA) and to establish a Palestinian prime minister to counterbalance Arafat’s
authority. Despite growing frustration that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have implemented the road map—and
European concern that the United States did not invest heavily enough in the effort—the road map constitutes the first joint
U.S.-European effort to produce a peace plan. The Quartet has also served to coordinate European positions, helping to
avoid the inclination for unilateral initiatives from major European powers that have tended to erode Washington’s confidence
in a European partner in the past. Thus, even while regional developments (most notably continued terrorism and settlement
activity) undermine the Quartet’s road map, the common U.S. and European fear of continued violence and its potential to
destabilize the broader region provides a strong incentive for transatlantic cooperation in this ongoing conflict.
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Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global rival or a return to
multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not
as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the
global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law.
Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as nuclear
proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude
the rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the
attendant dangers, including a global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a
bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
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Though biological weapons are difficult to deliver, Steinbrunner (1997) argues the consequences of their use are almost unlimited.
Given the new possibilities for genetic manipulations made possible by modern science, biological weapons could threaten the
future of human civilization. The Office of Technology Assessment, while cautioning that the probability of effective use is much
lower than for nuclear weapons, concluded in 1993 that, pound for pound, biological weapons might be more devastating for
human populations than nuclear weapons (OTA 1993, 52). Even though the probability of effective use is low, the enormous
magnitude may instantly make the use of biological weapons a credible threat. United States policy makers certainly take the threat
seriously. In an oft-repeated statement on the risk of biological warfare, the Office of Technology Assessment also noted that the
distribution of 100kg of anthrax in the air over a city could kill up to three million people (BBC 1998). As with chemical weapons,
while defensive measures can mitigate the terminal impact of use, in cases of asymmetric capabilities, the threat to use biological
weapons could be especially credible. Also similarly to chemical weapons, it is the fear of the impact of biological weapons, even
more than a rational cost-benefit analysis that makes them important for international politics. The possibility of mass disease in the
homeland or among troops deployed abroad, is frightening (Mauroni 2003, XV). This alternative view of chemical and biological
weapons leads to the following hypothesis.
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US-EU NMD
NMDs are inevitable, but won’t work without US-EU cooperation
Philip H. Gordon, former director for European Affairs at the National Security Council, 2-2001, Bush, Missile Defence and
the Atlantic Alliance, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/articles/2001/02defense_gordon/2001survival.pdf
Intensive allied discussions of the missile defence issue over the past year have helped to narrow some of the big gaps that
have divided the alliance on this issue. As a result of these discussions, Europeans have a better understanding of the
reality of the growing ballistic-missile threat (and the options for dealing with it), and Americans have a better appreciation
of the need to move deliberately and fully consider the potential international implications of a deployment. As the previous
sections make clear, however, the transatlantic gaps remain large. While it is possible that a set of external developments —
the emergence of a clear and realistic missile and WMD threat that would persuade Europeans of the need for active defences,
or alternatively very positive developments in Iran, Iraq and North Korea that would persuade Americans that they are not
needed — the more likely scenario is that Europeans and Americans continue to disagree on the net assessment of the
need for national missile defence over the next several years. In this context, how should they proceed? Most essential is for
all allies — and in particular the Americans — to realise that it is highly desirable, if not imperative, that Americans and
Europeans act in concert. At the most basic level, given the current US need for radars in the UK and Greenland, NMD
may simply fail to work if the United States does not get cooperation from Europe. This is also true for any eventual
boost-phase systems, which would also need Europeans to supply bases, ports, or airfields.
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US-EU NMD
Concessions to EU will exchange with full-scale NMDs
David Malone, president of the International Peace Academy in New York, and Ramesh Thakur, vice rector of the United
Nations University in Tokyo, 2-11-2001, Trade NMD for the CTBT, http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20010311a2.html
There can be little doubt that the Bush administration does not incline naturally toward multilateral diplomacy and a treaty-
based international security system. Nevertheless, it will not wish to alienate close allies on more than one or two issues at a
time and may soon find itself engaged in give-and-take with them. Its top priority appears to be the further development
and eventual deployment of a national missile defense system, a U.S. idea that has long unsettled not only Russia and
China, but also key European allies and Canada. It could well decide, among other measures, that ratification of the CTBT
had become useful to reassure allies and foes alike. Regardless of their views on NMD, U.S. allies and foes now need to
consider their own strategies. Indefinitely stamping their feet on an issue that may be nonnegotiable in essence but negotiable
in specifics and at the margins, would be self-defeating. NMD is not something the allies, Moscow or Beijing can stop.
However, they could well influence the context within which NMD will be developed, its ultimate scope and its detailed
aims. Their eventual consent can also be exchanged against concessions from Washington on related or different issues.
US and EU are diverging over issues like climate change, preventing NMDs
ANTONY J. BLINKEN, former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European Affairs, May 2001, The False
Crisis Over the Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Lexis
This distaste for American values is matched by concern that the United States acts like a bull in the global china shop,
causing a strategic split with Europe over matters such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and national missile
defense (NMD). To these Europeans, America's reluctance to join the global land-mines ban, the International Criminal
Court (ICC), and the Kyoto Protocol on global warming evidences selfish unilateralism. Its fixation with "states of concern"
(formerly known as "rogues") is at best naive, at worst -- in the case of sanctions against Iraq -- "genocidal." Europeans are
skeptical of American support for European integration, especially in defense. And they fear that the United States and
Europe are fated to economic warfare as trade disputes spiral out of control. Together, the "values gap" and the "strategic
split" form the core of a newly fashionable argument advanced by European elites -- and reflected by their American
counterparts -- that the United States and Europe are growing apart. But a closer look shows that, far from diverging, the
United States and Europe are converging culturally, economically, and with some effort, strategically. This false crisis makes it
more difficult to deal with those differences that do exist and reap the potential of a partnership that can benefit Americans and
Europeans far into the future.
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US-EU cooperation is key to successful climate change policies – now is the key
time
Julianne Smith, director of the CSIS Europe Program, 2008, “The Transatlantic Climate Change Challenge” The Washington
Quarterly, Winter 2007-2008, l/n
Both sides of the Atlantic appear to be moving away from their disparate steadfast convictions on the best means to
address climate change. Political elites are increasingly promoting a hybrid approach that will draw on technological
advances and some international regulation. Despite such achievements, Europe and the United States have much more
to do in and out of government to tackle the problem, especially if they have hopes of launching a major effort for an effective
successor to the Kyoto Protocol in any form. First and foremost, Europeans will need to accept that the most viable post-Kyoto
Protocol regime in the eyes of Americans will probably be the one that resembles the protocol the least. Americans might be
warming up to the idea of caps, but binding international limits are unlikely to attract the support of the U.S. government,
regardless of which presidential candidate wins the next election. William Pizer, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future,
outlines five characteristics of a future climate regime that would win the support of a wide variety of policymakers, especially
those in the United States: it must defer to domestic interests, need not focus on all countries, must include technology
development, must engage the developing countries, and must stress evaluating action after the fact. 30 On the other side of
the Atlantic, Americans need to find ways to capitalize on the momentum that is starting to build on this issue. One of the
unique ways to do this is to pull non-climate change communities into the debate to make this challenge a key component of
U.S. foreign policy. To date, a handful of studies have worked to bridge the gap between the national security and climate
change communities so that global warming receives the same attention that other global challenges receive. Climate change
will have major ramifications for migration, force posturing, failed states, and federal resource allocation. The sooner national
governments treat climate change as a national security issue, the faster it will receive the intellectual and financial resources it
merits. The two sides of the Atlantic must also jointly examine the economic implications of a failure to act. Most American
skeptics argue that the United States will risk economic damage by cutting its carbon emissions, particularly if others do not
follow suit. Others, such as Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the infamous "Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change,"
make the exact opposite point, that the economic costs of acting on global warming are far lower than the cost of inaction. 31
Although Stern's report has been criticized for its methodology (using an incorrect discount rate in its calculations), its
overarching thesis merits more discussion and research, particularly if Europeans have hopes of shrinking the pool of U.S.
skeptics. Any viable solution to the challenge of climate change rests on the ability of Europe and the United States to
combine their strengths, experiences, and positions into a post--Kyoto Protocol framework. Ultimately, the United States
will eventually need to agree to some form of emissions caps. Because that appears unlikely in the remaining months of the
Bush administration, Europeans will need to focus on short- and medium-term strategies. In the coming months, Europeans
and Americans should work to increase the tempo of their dialogue, bring in new communities, continue to dissuade the
skeptics, and capitalize on the fact that public opinion is primed for action. In the medium term, Europeans should be
preparing to engage the next U.S. president on this issue, with the hope of putting it at the top of the transatlantic agenda within
the first 100 days in office.
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Turns Case
IHT 3/26/'8 [UN climate change scientist: Tariffs on goods from big polluters spell trouble,
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/26/europe/EU-GEN-EU-Climate-Change.php]
BRUSSELS, Belgium: Unilateral sanctions against major polluters by countries applying stricter environmental standards
would create serious political problems, the chief U.N. climate scientist warned Wednesday. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the U.N.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore,
said applying import tariffs on goods from countries that do not comply with low carbon technologies needs to be avoided. "This issue
would be politically very divisive, you'd create a lot of political problems if certain groups of countries were to take these
actions," Pachauri told journalists at the European Parliament, where he met members of the assembly's group on climate change.
Pachauri responded to a warning by the European Union that the United States, China and other major polluters could face
consequences if they do not sign up to an international agreement on fighting global warming by next year.
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No Obama Change
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Both Mr. Obama and his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, have said they will endorse a "cap-and-trade" system
here in the United States, which the Bush administration has resisted.
But on the question that matters most to Europe - a global agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol - the next U.S. president may not
depart from Mr. Bush's position, which has been that China and India must be part of any deal.
Mr. McCain has clearly stated that China and India must bring their emerging economies into any global agreement.
Mr. Obama has been more vague. An Obama spokesman said that the senator would "push aggressively" for China and India to
participate, while also setting up a global energy forum made up of the world's largest developed and developing emitters.
"There has occasionally been voiced the misimpression that a future administration will take a significantly different attitude towards
climate than this administration," said Dan Price, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs.
"We have tried to explain that it is highly unlikely that any future administration would be prepared to sign a new climate treaty that
did not include binding commitments from the major emerging economies to address their own emissions," he said during an
interview with a small group of reporters.
John Bruton, the EU ambassador to the U.S., said that expecting China and India to sign on to a post-Kyoto agreement "before you've
done anything yourself is ludicrous."
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John McCain and Barack Obama both promise a "kinder, gentler" foreign policy. Beyond this shift in tone, their blueprints for world
order are vague. Before we hire either as an architect or general contractor, we need some straight talk about which international
institutions are worth preserving, which can be salvaged and which need to be demolished. Here are several questions they need to
answer:
• The G8: Any global steering committee that includes Canada (population 33 million, GDP $1.4 trillion) and Italy (58 million, $2.07
trillion) but excludes China (1.33 billion, $3.25 trillion) and India (1.15 billion, $1.15 trillion) is hopelessly obsolete. McCain would
keep the G8 a democratic club by ejecting Russia, adding India and Brazil, and excluding China. Where does Obama stand?
• The Security Council: In 2004, George W. Bush invoked John Kerry's notion of a "global test" as a cudgel to beat the Democratic
nominee. And yet Iraq shows that acting without the U.N. Security Council's blessing carries steep diplomatic, military and financial
costs. Under what conditions would either candidate seek U.N. authorization to use armed force? And how would they overhaul the
council's membership to reflect the tremendous power shifts since 1945?
• NATO: The trans-Atlantic alliance celebrates its 60th birthday next April in a mid-life crisis, internally divided over its mission in
Afghanistan, its posture toward Russia, and its relations with the European Union. Beyond asking allies to pull their own weight, how
do the candidates plan to make NATO relevant to today's security threats — and avoid the emergence of a "two-tier" alliance?
• A Concert of Democracies? McCain advocates a league of democratic states to compete with the United Nations as a source of
international legitimacy. Two senior Obama advisers, Tony Lake and Ivo Daalder, agree. Does Obama himself believe such a league
would advance American global leadership — or merely complicate it?
• Climate Change: Both candidates endorse a "cap and trade" system to reduce U.S. emissions. But avoiding global catastrophe will
require a successor to the Kyoto Protocol at the 2009 Copenhagen Summit and cooperation among a narrower coalition of major
emitters. How do the candidates propose to strike such multilateral bargains?
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The United States has never ratified the Kyoto treaty, with Bush complaining that it puts too much of a burden on the U.S. and other
developed countries to reduce emissions while developing giants such as China and India are given a freer rein to pollute even as they
vigorously compete with America around the world.
Bush will leave office next January, and both major candidates to succeed him have said they are willing to go further in cutting back
American emissions.
The G-8 statement solidified a pledge made at the last summit in Germany a year ago to seriously consider such a long-term target.
But the move fell far short of demands by some developing countries and environmentalists pushing for deeper cuts by 2050 and a
firm signal from wealthy countries on what they are willing to do on the much tougher midterm goal of cutting emissions by 2020.
"To be meaningful and credible, a long-term goal must have a base year, it must be underpinned by ambitious midterm targets and
actions," said Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism. "As it is expressed in the G-8
statement, the long-term goal is an empty slogan."
With the countdown under way to the presidency of Barack Obama or John McCain, the most the summit can do is set up a
framework for pollution-cutting agreements that replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012, said Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the
Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
``Most of Bush's partners are looking to the next president,'' Dale said. European leaders will ``be trying to pin Bush further down on
the nature of commitments that the United States might undertake to reduce emissions in the shorter term.''
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Bush won’t cut emissions unless developing nations do—even under pressure.
redOrbit News, 7/7/08, G8: Bush Pressured To Commit To Emissions Reductions, REDORBIT NEWS,
http://www.redorbit.com/news/display/?id=1466522 [SD]
With climate change at the top of the agenda for the G8 nations meeting on the Japanese island of Hokkaido this week, the European
Union and environmental groups are putting pressure on the Bush administration today in hopes of getting the U.S. to agree to halve
global greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century and back the need for rich countries to set 2020 goals as well.
Green groups fear that the summit, which lasts from Monday until Wednesday, will end without a firm commitment to slash emissions
by 2050.
The so-called Major Economies Meeting will bring leaders from large nations such as China, India, Brazil and Australia together to
discuss climate change with G8 leaders.
"So far we have seen progress, difficult progress but progress," said a EU source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This year's G8 meeting would be considered a failure by Brussels if there was no agreement to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050,
the EU source said, adding that there was already common ground on other issues such as use of market mechanisms, including
emissions trading as "the way to go and I think that is quite useful and it has been signed up by all the G8 members."
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the meeting would be a success if there was agreement on a clear-cut 50
percent reduction by 2050.
"If we agree among ourselves (in the G8), then we are in a much better position for discussions with our Chinese partners and others,"
Barroso said.
Both China and India have refused to commit to a fixed target to curb emissions unless rich nations, like the U.S., do so as well. Both
countries’ economies produce about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions.
President George W. Bush has refused to back any fixed numerical targets to cut emissions unless developing nations agree to binding
commitments to curb their carbon pollution.
The G8 emits about 40 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution, about half of that alone coming from the United States.
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France is currently placing carbon taxes on importers who are not capping carbon
emissions.
James Kanter and Stephen Castle, staff writers, International Herald Tribune, 1/22/08, US warns EU on using
climate change as pretext,
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/01/22/us_warns_eu_on_using_climate_change_as_pre
text/ [SD]
BRUSSELS - The United States warned the European Union yesterday against using climate change as a pretext for protectionism,
setting the stage for trans-Atlantic tension over a new package of EU measures to combat global warming.
The pointed comments by the US trade representative, Susan Schwab, after talks in Brussels, came just two days before the European
Commission introduced its proposals for cutting EU emissions at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
"We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where we have seen the climate and the environment being used as an excuse to
close markets," Schwab said after discussions with Peter Mandelson, her European counterpart.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has called for a carbon tax on imports to ensure that European companies that need to comply
with tough environmental rules are not undercut by foreign competitors whose governments are not capping carbon emissions.
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No Bush Change
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The EU and the US depend on each other; the plan can’t break the relationship.
Hampton Roads International Security Quarterly, 7/15/08, US-EU Summit Declaration,
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2394258&title=June_2008_US-
EU_Summit.html [SD]
We, the leaders of the United States of America and the European Union, met today in Brdo, Slovenia to further strengthen our
strategic partnership. We view this Summit, and the fact that it is being hosted by Slovenia in its role as Presidency of the Council of
the EU, as symbolic of our endeavour to realize a free, democratic and united Europe. The process of unifying Europe is one of the
outstanding historical legacies of our partnership over the past half century. The strategic partnership between the U.S. and EU is
firmly anchored in our common values and increasingly serves as a platform from which we can act in partnership to meet the most
serious global challenges and to advance our shared values, freedom and prosperity around the globe. We seek a world based on
international law, democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and strengthened by broad and sustainable market-based economic
growth. The bond between the U.S. and the EU has proven its resilience through times of difficulty, and we continue to demonstrate
global leadership and effective transatlantic cooperation in the face of the most pressing challenges of our day:
Promoting international peace, stability, democracy, human rights, international criminal justice, the rule of law and good governance;
Fighting the scourge of terrorism while protecting the fundamental freedoms on which our democratic societies are built;
Encouraging the world's fast-growing economic powers to assume their responsibilities in the global rules-based system;
Fostering an open, competitive and innovative transatlantic economy, through free movement of goods, persons, services and capital,
while working together towards a prompt, balanced and ambitious agreement in the WTO Doha Round that creates new market access
and strengthens growth in both developed and developing nations;
Combating climate change, promoting energy security and efficiency, helping developing nations lift themselves out of poverty, and
fighting the most crippling infectious diseases.
An effective response to these challenges requires transatlantic unity of purpose and effective multilateral approaches. We stand
stronger when we stand together especially in meeting new global challenges.
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There was little more than the window dressing of a farewell tour in President Bush's trip to Europe earlier this month. Most
significantly, he failed to come away with a clear idea of where Europe stands on Iran. It is a pity, but it is not surprising. At the end of
his second mandate an American president progressively loses his political influence, becoming a semi irrelevant actor on the political
scene of his country. This element coupled with the entrenched European indecision in facing the Iranian issue undermined the results
of a trip that otherwise could have had a very positive effect on the transatlantic alliance.
The president had a full agenda. The visit, which began on June 9, was meant to strengthen the transatlantic alliance, build a united
front to face the threat of a nuclear Iran and encourage a stronger European commitment in Afghanistan. Bush participated in the
annual EU-US summit in Brdo, Slovenia, and met with the leaders of Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. He also
briefly visited Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.
It all felt like Bush's grand farewell to America's best allies in Europe. The concerns and disagreements over the invasion of Iraq in
2003 seemed finally behind us. We heard statements on the importance of the transatlantic alliance. The economic relationship
between the United States and Europe was wholly acknowledged. There were pronouncements over the need for better cooperation on
climate change, Iraq and Afghanistan. The allies even managed to find common ground on stricter sanctions for Iran to stop its nuclear
enrichment program. But something was missing. As noted by the European and American press alike, President Bush's visit did not
spark much interest among the European public. In stark contrast with his previous trips to Europe, this trip was largely ignored by the
European left, even in Germany--were nobody is denied a good rally. The lame duck doesn't have much more to offer: the
European allies are now focused on the future.
Bush has no influence in Europe and Obama/McCain won’t change future policies either.
Ida Garibaldi, visiting research fellow at AEI, 6/17/08, Bush Returns from Europe without Understand the Old
Continent’s Postion on Iran, http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28179/pub_detail.asp [SD]
Bush lost his credibility with the war in Iraq, an enterprise that was poorly explained and badly executed. As a result, he has not been
able to stand up to Iran with the resolution that he would have liked. Europe stood aside, hoping to dodge the issue, or if necessary
tackle it later on with the cooperation of a less unilateral American president. However, Europeans who believe a change in the White
House will bring about a radical change in American foreign policy is bound to be disappointed. The 9/11 terrorist attacks have
changed America's perception of its role in the international system and vis a vis its European allies. The conviction that America is a
benevolent hegemon which should defend its position of supremacy doesn't belong only to the Bush administration. It is shared across
the American political spectrum. Over the next half century, the United States will be able to take and implement decisions without
the consent of the international community and outside the multilateral system that Europe would like to build. An administration less
influenced by the neoconservatives will pay more attention to public diplomacy and cultivate better its allies. But after the 9/11
terrorist attacks, American security will be the first priority of any American president even by use of a preemptive strike. Indeed,
Barack Obama and John McCain both accept the possibility to militarily attack Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, no
matter what the international community would say about it.
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With President Bush attending his last G8 summit in Japan, it is a good time to assess the foreign policy legacy of his Administration
—and what a legacy!
From the Middle East to Latin America to Europe to South Asia, Bush’s policies have created multiple disasters.
First, let us quickly get out of the way the positive things he has done. He has substantially increased foreign aid, especially the
amount dedicated to fighting AIDS and other infectious diseases in Africa. (The aid has been tied to the Bush Administration’s pet
projects, such as abstinence-only programs and the purchase of brand-name drugs, but still…) And the Bush Administration has
sobered up and negotiated (if in a tardy manner) with North Korea over its nuclear program.
That’s all I can up with. Otherwise, it’s been one catastrophe after another.
In the May issue of Current History magazine, Books Editor William Finan has listed five qualities of the Bush Administration that
got it into its global mess: unmitigated triumphalism, belief in the infallibility of America’s military might, Bush’s supreme self-
righteousness, his religious beliefs, and what Finan calls the Administration’s “smite them” doctrine. The combination of these
elements has brewed a deadly cocktail.
The results are most apparent in the Middle East, where the Bush Administration’s legacy will be the hardest to mend. As Bassma
Kodmani asserts in Current History, the Arab world is waiting for the new Administration in January 2009 to completely redo the
record of the Bush crowd in the region—from Iraq and Iran to Israel/Palestine and Lebanon. Only then will the Arab governments and
elites feel that the damage has been undone. To them, Bush is “one of the worst U.S. Presidents they have known in their long years in
power,” Kodmani says.
Washington’s overweening arrogance and free-market zealotry has not endeared it in Latin America. That is why it has very few true
friends in the area, save Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who came to power in a dubious election, and Colombian President
Alvaro Uribe, whose government is cozy with brutal death squads.
In Europe, Bush first antagonized much of the continent with his unilateral invasion of Iraq. And he’s now busy annoying Russia with
his installation of the missile defense system in Eastern Europe, supposedly to protect against incoming missiles from Iran. Russia’s
pique is not surprising, since, as George Lewis and Theodore Postol point out in the May/June issue of the Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, the system seems to be aimed as much against Russia as Iran.
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US has a terrible approval rating and only improvement relies on Bush leaving.
Pascal Boniface, director of IRIS, published or edited more than 40 books dealing with
international relations, nuclear deterrence and disarmament, European security and
French international policy, 6/27/08, US is still an unpopular country, Gulf News,
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/world/10224106.html [SD]
There is good news and bad news for the US President George W. Bush. The good news is the US image is getting better. The bad
news is the change is largely due to Bush's departure from the White House by the end of this year.
This is the conclusion the Pew Research Centre has arrived at after it conducted polls in 24 countries to ascertain world opinion on the
United States.
Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the unpopularity ratings of the US are still high compared to the beginning of the 21st century.
But for the first time since American forces landed in Iraq, it is improving slightly in 10 countries. And almost everywhere, the public
opinion indicates the upcoming election of a new president is the best thing that could happen to the US.
In almost every country, two-thirds of those surveyed believe that Bush's departure will lead to a better US diplomacy. There are more
people who prefer Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama to the Republican candidate John McCain. According to the
survey, Obama is twice as popular as the Republican candidate. But we have to keep in mind that in 2004, although an overwhelming
number of voters in other parts of the world (only virtually) voted for John Kerry, American voters re-elected Bush.
Public opinions take into consideration the growth of China into an economic and military power. With its growing influence in the
world comes more responsibilities. But, according to the polls, Beijing seems to disregard these responsibilities.
China and the US are considered the main contributors to climate change and global warming.
The survey found that only in eight countries did the US enjoy a good reputation. They are United Kingdom, India, Lebanon, Nigeria,
Poland, South Africa, Tanzania and South Korea. However, it should be borne in mind that the survey was conducted before the crisis
between Seoul and Washington over the free trade agreement, which was largely rejected by South Korea.
In the Muslim world, the popularity of the US hit the nadir. Only 22 per cent of Egyptians, 19 per cent of Jordanians and Pakistanis,
and 12 per cent of Turks support the US. Even in European countries, which are the historic US allies, negative opinions are dominant.
In Germany, only 31 per cent of the population are happy with the US. This rate is 34 per cent in Spain, and 42 per cent in France. In a
third of the countries in which the study has been done, people consider the US more as an enemy than as a friend, even in official US
allied countries such as Turkey and Pakistan.
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Aff – No link
No Link: EU would lose more than they would gain if they implemented a tax
on the U.S.
RSS (review of policy research), 2-26-08, linking cooperation on climate change to cooperation on trade,
http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&tab=wm#inbox/11b3bdceac6e4718 [Barber]
The potential for successfully linking cooperation on climate change to cooperation on international trade has been explored
mainly in terms of trade restrictions with a main focus on "trade in goods that are directly linked to the environmental problem"
(Barrett, 1997, p. 347). As Stiglitz (2006) reminds us, firms operating in a country that does not participate in the climate
regime do not pay the full cost of the damage they cause to the environment. Such firms therefore have a commercial
advantage amounting to an indirect subsidy. Producers in the fossil-fuel-intensive industries, especially, benefit from this
advantage. However, subsidies are not allowed by the WTO except in specific situations and sectors, such as agriculture.
Hence, Stiglitz proposes that the existing trade framework could be used to compel nonparticipating industrialized countries in
general, and the United States in particular, to reengage in the Kyoto process. According to Stiglitz, the United States would
likely reengage if the Kyoto countries (threaten to) prohibit the importation of U.S. goods produced using energy-intensive
technologies, or impose a high tax to offset the subsidy that those goods currently receive (Stiglitz, 2006, p. 2). Trade
restrictions imposed by the Kyoto countries on the import of U.S. goods produced using energy-intensive technologies could
do tremendous harm to the U.S. economy. One might therefore reasonably expect the United States to be prepared to make
significant sacrifices to avoid such restrictions. In particular, one might expect that the United States would prefer to cooperate
on both climate change and trade rather than to refuse to cooperate on climate change and therefore be subjected to trade
restrictions. If this expectation is correct, then linking cooperation on climate change to cooperation on trade, as suggested by
Stiglitz, would satisfy Davis's requirement of complementarity.
We argue, however, that a threat by the Kyoto countries to link cooperation on climate change to cooperation on trade, would
likely not be credible. First, for the Kyoto countries to use such linkage they would have to impose trade restrictions that would
probably be impermissible under WTO regulations (Bodansky, 2002). According to WTO regulations, a Kyoto country that
uses a carbon tax to meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol can, in principle, adopt border tax adjustments to
compensate for the advantages enjoyed by companies in countries that do not impose a carbon tax (or similar).7 If it does
impose such border tax adjustments, its importers of U.S. goods produced using emissions-intensive technology will face a tax
payable on the goods imported. To be permissible under WTO regulations, however, such border tax adjustments must apply in
a non-discriminatory manner to all WTO member countries that do not impose a carbon tax (or similar) (Bodansky, 2002).
This implies that the border tax adjustments would have to apply not only to goods produced in the United States (as intended)
but also to goods produced in other WTO member countries that are parties to the Kyoto Protocol but that do not impose a
carbon tax (or similar) in their domestic economies (Bodansky, 2002, pp. 6–7). Thus, the border tax adjustments would also
have to apply to goods produced in parties to the Kyoto Protocol that have not made binding emissions reduction commitments
(i.e., developing countries such as China, India, and Brazil), and to Kyoto countries that do not have effective emissions
limitation targets (i.e., East European countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania).8 Making the trade
restrictions nondiscriminatory is thus likely to meet fierce opposition from such countries.
In conclusion, linking cooperation on climate change to cooperation on trade would likely entail damage either to the climate
regime (by causing tension between Kyoto countries with binding and effective emissions limitation commitments and other
Kyoto parties), or to the trade regime (by violating WTO regulations requiring that trade restrictions be used in a
nondiscriminatory way). It is therefore unlikely that the Kyoto countries would in fact be prepared to implement such border
tax adjustments as a response to United States' failure to cooperate on climate change
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Aff – no link
All actions taken under Bush administration don’t matter to the EU
Martin LaMonica, 4-17-08, Bush sets goals to stop US green house gas growth, but offers no concrete plans,
http://www.smartplanet.com/news/people/10001060/bush-sets-goal-to-stop-us-greenhouse-gas-growth-but-offers-no-concrete-
plans.htm [Barber]
Initial reaction to the speech's text brought some negative comments from legislators and policy analysts who
said it will not bring about significant changes to legislation now under discussion.
"President Bush's announcement will be soon forgotten," David Sandalow, an energy and global warming
expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, told Bloomberg. "The most important decisions in the
international global-warming negotiations will be made once President Bush leaves office."
John Cahill, who co-chairs the Climate Change practice at Chadbourne & Parke and who helped create the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the northeast US, said that Bush's speech did not get the country
closer to federal regulations. "Unfortunately, nothing the president said today substantially reduces industry's
deep problem of climate regulation uncertainty," Cahill said.
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New York Times, 4/20/03, Europe Gets Tougher On U.S. Companies, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9900E0D9143AF933A15757C0A9659C8B63 [adit]
The Bush administration regularly weighs in against European regulations that it sees as hurting business. Rockwell A. Schnabel, the
United States ambassador to the European Union, called for "smart regulation" that "meets society's objectives without strangling
innovation and growth."
Many Europeans are still angry at the Bush administration for its rejection of the Kyoto protocol, an agreement created to curb global
warming. Jorge Moreira da Silva, a member of the European Parliament from Portugal, said he hoped to turn the tables on President
Bush. Mr. Moreira da Silva is shepherding legislation on emissions trading, a market-based incentives plan that the European Union is
considering even though the United States has not yet signed on to the agreement.
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Christian Hald-Mortensen, Danish Institute of International Studies, May 08, “Translantic Climate Policy: Towards a Copenhagen
protocol in 2009, http://209.85.215.104/search?q=cache:lvYHvFwmQbUJ:www.uaces.org/EE_Hald-
Mortensen.pdf+perception+and+Bush+and+environment+and+policy+and+EUROPE+and+voluntary,
+incentives&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us [Barber]
After 1997, the Europeans and Americans diverged on the Kyoto Protocol, and the EU gained importance globally because the U.S.
rejected the Kyoto Protocol This rejection was a major disappointment for Europeans who saw the U.S. as a “rogue state” in global
environmental politics
The U.S. remains crucial for the effectiveness of any climate regime with 20% of world emissions, and because
China have made their participation conditional on U.S. participation
The U.S. debate on climate policy has been highly focused on economic competitiveness. In the late
1990’s a group of major economic interests launched the “Global Climate Information Project”, and spread fear regarding Kyoto’s
economic impact
Such concern was codified into law, when the Senate enacted the Byrd-Hagel Act, stating that the U.S. would accept no agreement
that did not subject major developing countries to reductions, or that would hurt the U.S. economy. In 2001, this rationale for
voluntary defection was echoed again by President George W. Bush. The President declared in March
2001 that the U.S. defected “because (the Kyoto protocol) exempts 80% of the world, including major population centers such as
China and India, from compliance, and would cause serious harm to the U.S. economy”
The U.S. government has pursued two major unilateral diplomatic initiatives among the top emitters outside of the UN process. With
no binding reductions targets and little real funding, the “Major
Economies” initiative aims to diffuse new technologies, but was feared to be a decoy. As a host nation,
the Danish government hopes that the “major economies” initiative will relay a coordinated perception
of the climate problem into the UNFCCC process
The Bush Administration has also initiated a climate diplomacy initiative vis-à-vis the Asian economies. The “Asia –Pacific
Partnership on Clean Development and Climate” (AP-6) includes Australia,
China, India, Japan, Republic of South Korea and the U.S., and represents half the world’s emissions and population. The partnership
addresses technology cooperation and the reduction of the energy intensity of their economies, but contains no binding reduction
targets
The AP-6’s absence of reduction targets led commentator, Dr. Anja Köhne from the World Wildlife Fund Europe to call the
partnership a “smoke screen”, because the AP6 is very optimistic about technological transformation
The approach favors diffusion of policy learning; the State Department lauds the fact that China is learning
from the U.S. Energy Star Program to produce more efficient energy appliances
Internally, U.S. policy has focused on “voluntary measures” to be taken by major polluters, and technology development grants
distributed by the federal government. The Bush administration has spent 37 billion$ since 2001 on climate science and observation,
and from 2003 to 2006, the U.S. invested $3 billion annually in climate technology such as carbon capturing and sequestration,
nuclear power and biofuels. What undergirds the Bush Administration’s domestic policy initiatives as well as its two major climate
diplomacy initiatives is the absence of binding reduction targets. Instead, the U.S. government has favored technological solutions.
Not only the Bush administration, but also presidential contenders Hillary Clinton, Rudy Guiliani, and the influential columnist
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, as well as climatologist Michael Oppenheimer has discussed techno-optimist solutions to
climate policy. The purest form of this type of policy is a “Manhattan Project on Climate Change”
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