The US, world’s biggest polluter and emitter of carbon dioxide and Australia, biggest coal exporter, are still refusing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Both bring forward the argument that unless China and India are not included, it would have negative impact on their economy.
Wednesday evening during the final meeting the EU delegation in particular Irish EU delegate Avril Doyle said the European Commission considers a punitive tariff on imports from countries guilty of gross environmental irresponsibility.
EU Environmental Minister Stavros Dimas confirmed that the commission in Brussels was looking into punitive tariffs. A study on “the pros and cons of such a measure” is in preparation.
The punitive tariffs will “balance out” economic irregularities in the “struggle against climate change,” according to Dimas. Countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol are faced with extra costs connected with the global trading of pollution certificates, which means they’re subject to rising prices on their products.
Earlier this week French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin rattled some nerves in Nairobi when he threatened to impose a carbon tax on the US and Australia for refusing to join Kyoto.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said: “Well that is a thoroughly silly proposal and is totally out of touch with reality”.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper on Wednesday ridiculed the French tax proposal, running a photograph of a mushroom cloud from a French nuclear test in the South Pacific in 1971, with a headline “Back off, Frogs”.
Spiegel: Pollution Penalties for the US?
Daily Telegraph: Hopping mad over French sneer
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