Originally published November 28 2005
Emissions trading becomes a regular practice in the European Union
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The practice of trading emissions is one originated by the Clinton Administration, but since the U.S. stepped away from Kyoto, Europe has adopted the practice as a practical means to curb greenhouse gas.
Seven months after the Kyoto global warming accord took effect, Europeans are transforming their economies to meet the treaty's requirement of curbs in greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the arrangement, which had been used successfully to fight acid rain in the United States, companies and governments are given a choice of either reducing carbon dioxide emissions, or paying someone else to do so.
Trading emissions is designed to factor the social cost of fighting climate change into economic decision-making, rewarding investments in cleaner technology but letting the market decide how best to reduce pollution.
European leaders weren't thrilled with the idea - they preferred government regulatory solutions - but they had no choice but to go along.
Then the Bush administration and the U.S. Senate walked away from Kyoto, saying it would wreck the American economy.
Countries are allowed to buy some of their credits in the developing world, where they are cheaper, on the theory that reduced emissions anywhere benefit the entire planet.
Many experts - including some U.S. business leaders - believe that mandatory emissions trading will become a fact of life in America once the United States joins Europe in making a commitment to dealing with the potentially disastrous implications of climate change.
Philadelphia's Mayor John Street is among 131 mayors who have signed a pledge agreeing to meet what would have been Kyoto's U.S. target - emitting 7 percent less carbon dioxide than 1990 levels by 2012.
The willingness of Europe and the rest of the industrialized world to incur the costs of curbing emissions - even without national participation by the United States, which puts out 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases each year - underscores the extent to which Europeans see climate change as a grave threat, in contrast to a far less certain view among Americans.
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