China seeks export carbon relief

[Coventina]

Source: BBC

China has proposed that importers of Chinese-made goods should be responsible for the carbon dioxide emitted during their manufacture.

China's top climate change negotiator, Li Gao, said his country should not pay for cutting emissions caused by the high demands of other countries.

In recent years China has overtaken the US as the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases.

Mr Li was in Washington for talks ahead of a major conference in Copenhagen.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7947438.stm

[ATOMain]

1. laughable

[Fearless]

3. Welcome to DU btw.

:hi:

[ATOMain]

5. thanks for the welcome

[Fearless]

2. Of course they do because they know the US won't do it...

And of course, they are their biggest importer. Therefore, they look like the good guy, the US looks like the bad guy, and the environment goes to seed regardless.

[global_traveler]

4. BuyCott Chinese Goods Altogether

That'll force them to stop dumping their crap on us. Just stop buying it.

[PaulaFarrell]

6. I think this is kind of reasonable

One of the biggest red herrings that comes up about global warming is that 'well, India and China are the biggest emitters'. Apart from the fact that they also have by far the biggest populations, the bulk of their emissions are largly due to the fact that the west has offshored so much of its manufacturing and other business operations to these countries. The average consumer in India/China consumes a tiny fraction of what is used by the average person in the west. Obviously they need to use the best technology, but I do honestly believe each person is responsible for the end-to-end emissions of everything they consume - not just the amount of gas they put in the car, but the amount of energy it took to manufacture the car in the first place.

[MellowDem]

9. It's not reasonable at all

It's China's choice to have all this manufacturing; they want it there. Why don't we have them pay for emissions of past industrial revolutions, you know, the ones they benefitted from with their cheap labor? Makes as much sense as this. You can't have the "importer" be responsible for emissions and not the "exporter".

[Veruca Salt]

7. Whatever, then lets stop importing chinese made goods.

I'd prefer that anyway.

[apnu]

8. I have a better idea.

Keep importing them but put a carbon tax on them. Don't have a carbon tax on US made goods and watch people start buying up US made goods over Chinese good just to avoid paying the extra tax.

Then China can STFU, the Federal Government gets an extra revenue stream (to help pay for all this stimulus) US workers get jobs to fill and everybody's happy!

[Veruca Salt]

10. Now THAT is an excellent idea!

And you're 100% right, people will buy the US goods over the Chinese ones though the fact that there's a carbon tax on it needs to be plainly advertised on the product. Sort of like we do for organic vs non-organic food. People will automatically gravitate to labels like those and a lot of times I'll be sitting trying to figure out where something came from if it's not marked in an easy place to find (because I always buy American first if I can help it). Something like that would give the added benefit of the 'where' it was made being easily labeled.