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Time for Europe to get tough |
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Written by Jonathan Maslow
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Monday, 28 May 2007 |
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It came as a disappointment, but no
surprise, that the Bush administration rejected the German proposal on climate
change leading up to next week’s G-8 summit of industrialized countries. This U.S. president has shown himself incapable of
reflection or change, in Iraq,
on energy and climate policies, among many others. The question now is what
Europe and Japan are going to do about Bush’s rejectionism: paper it over with smiles and soft-core
communiqués? Or deliver some firmer message that American unilateralism won’t
be let off with a roll of the eyes?
The other G-8 members are not in a
position to beg. On the contrary, the commitments the European Union has made
to mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions put them in the driver’s seat.
For the fact is that American rejection of Kyoto gave American industry a
competitive advantage over European and
Japanese industries that agreed to start factoring in a carbon cost in their
production. That’s not free and fair trade. American industry has had a
decade-long free ride. Maybe it’s time for Europe and Japan to start letting Mr. Bush know that they
intend to take the U.S. to the World Trade Organization to end the unfair subsidy American industry got by turning thumbs down on every attempt thus far to control global warming.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 May 2007 )
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