 | Boy, this is going to go over well in the States ... |
President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that would take effect when that accord ran out in 2012. He welcomed the reference by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address last week to climate change as a "serious challenge," and acknowledged that local politicians in the United States appeared to endorse emission cuts.
But in an interview, Chirac warned that if Washington did not join a global climate accord, a Europewide carbon tax on imports from nations that have not signed the Kyoto Protocol could be imposed to try to force U.S. compliance. The European Union is the largest export market for U.S. goods.
| Conversely, Europe sells a lot of stuff to the U.S., stuff we just might be able to get along without, if you think about it ... |
"A carbon tax is inevitable," Chirac said. "If it is European, and I believe it will be European, then it will all the same have a certain influence because it means that all the countries that do not accept the minimum obligations will be obliged to pay."
Trade lawyers have been divided over the legality of a carbon tax, with some saying it would contravene international trade rules. But Chirac said that other European countries would back it. "I believe we will have all of the European Union," he said.
| And you won't have a trade treaty to enforce it. And you could kiss Doha goodbye ... |
At a time when many Western policymakers consider that the biggest challenge will be to persuade China and India to limit their emissions, Chirac appeared hopeful. "I am less pessimistic than many about emerging countries, notably China," he said. "The problems are so serious that they cannot be managed, especially because of their social consequences.
| "But we Euros, we can fail to manage anything!" |
One way or another, the problem has to be dealt with. China specialists say that these days a lot of the social problems have at their origin environmental problems."
Chirac repeated his call for the creation of a world environment organization that would centralize about 500 international agreements on the environment and 18 international bodies and departments whose remit is environmental.
| Because when you think of centralization, you think of France ... |
"The system is not efficient; it's a fragmented system," Chirac said. "We must have a UNOE — a UN organization for the environment — which would in some sense be the environmental conscience of the world and which would be capable of coordinated action."
| Run by French apparatchiks, of course ... |
He said such an organization would have the power to impose sanctions on member states and could be modeled on the World Health Organization. |