Forget the global warming fund and help instead the US to overcome its addiction.
Sir, Jagdish Bhagwati proposes that “A global warming fund could succeed where Kyoto failed”, August 16, and argues that “it is hard to imagine the US objecting to making nations pay for their total pollutions . . . [as] Such as tax is only way of creating a missing market”. Where has he been?
The US is a country that has gone berserk consuming petrol and therefore a tax to put some break on that would be a perfectly natural thing to do, and not only for environmental reasons. Nonetheless, such is the depth of its problem that even their high priest Al Gore does not even dare to mention a tax, not even as a possibility.
Since a fund, in order to function, needs that all its partners share in its objectives, and values, Mr. Bhagwati should instead join us in telling the US, as friends tell each other the truth, that it is really not worthy of sitting down to discuss global warming, until they have reduced their per capita consumption of petrol, at least 20%. Besides, if successful in helping the biggest oil addict to fight his habit one would, in environmental terms, have accomplished more than any ambitious global warming fund could ever dream of achieving, in more than a decade, or two.
Jagdish Bhagwati global warming fund oil addiction
The US is a country that has gone berserk consuming petrol and therefore a tax to put some break on that would be a perfectly natural thing to do, and not only for environmental reasons. Nonetheless, such is the depth of its problem that even their high priest Al Gore does not even dare to mention a tax, not even as a possibility.
Since a fund, in order to function, needs that all its partners share in its objectives, and values, Mr. Bhagwati should instead join us in telling the US, as friends tell each other the truth, that it is really not worthy of sitting down to discuss global warming, until they have reduced their per capita consumption of petrol, at least 20%. Besides, if successful in helping the biggest oil addict to fight his habit one would, in environmental terms, have accomplished more than any ambitious global warming fund could ever dream of achieving, in more than a decade, or two.
Jagdish Bhagwati global warming fund oil addiction
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