Chemical & Engineering News Digital Edition - January 11, 2010

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Volume 88, Number 2
After Copenhagen
THE UNITED NATIONS-sponsored climate
conference held in December in Copenhagen
was neither the groundbreaking
success proclaimed by President Barack
Obama and other world leaders nor the abject
failure gleefully denigrated by climatechange
skeptics.
C&EN Senior Correspondent Cheryl
Hogue attended the entire conference and,
with assistance from Senior Correspondent
Jeff Johnson here in Washington, reported
on it in several News of the Week stories
(Dec. 14, 2009, pages 6 and 7; Dec. 21, 2009,
pages 6 and 7; and Jan. 4, page 8). Hogue’s
comprehensive wrapup from the conference
appears in this week’s issue (see page 27).
As Hogue points out, negotiations in
Copenhagen “yielded little. They were stymied
not only by shifting geopolitical dynamics
but also by procedural maneuvers
that stifled consensus and by disruptions
from the unprecedented number of people
observing the proceedings.”
That’s a nice way of saying that the
conference was a mess. As Hogue suggests,
it has now become likely that a UNsponsored,
worldwide agreement to limit
greenhouse gas emissions is unattainable.
Climate-change skeptics are elated by this
development, but they should not be.
Their fundamental position is no longer
tenable. No world leader who spoke in Copenhagen
suggested that human-induced
climate change is the fiction skeptics claim
it to be. Copenhagen, in fact, established
global climate change caused by human activities
as a worldwide challenge, no longer
deniable, that even the Chinese recognize
they have to at least pay lip service to.
Do not underestimate the importance of
lip service. Climate-change skeptics would
have you believe that Chinese (and Indian
and Brazilian) commitments to curb their
contributions to global warming are meaningless.
This misses the point entirely. China,
India, Brazil, and other rapidly industrializing
countries have now acknowledged that
they have a responsibility to play a role in
protecting the global climate. This is important
progress that should not be dismissed.
Nevertheless, consensus doesn’t equate
with constructive action on climate issues.
What is also now clear is that the U.S.
should move forward to aggressively tackle
WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 3 JANUARY 11, 2010
FROM THE EDITOR
climate-change issues outside of the UNsponsored
framework.
For starters, H.R. 2454, the 1,200-page climate-change
and energy legislation passed
by the House of Representatives in June
2009 that establishes a CO 2 cap-and-trade
system, should be put out of its misery in favor
of a simple carbon tax. Cap-and-trade is
a sop to the coal, petroleum, and other energy-intensive
industries; it does nothing but
muddle the very simple need to put a price
on carbon on which industry can base its
capital-spending decisions. A carbon tax accomplishes
that goal simply and efficiently.
The Europeans already are coming to recognize
the inherent problems of cap-andtrade
because they are experiencing them.
The European Union and the U.S., together
with Japan—already the most energyefficient
developed nation—should jointly
enact a significant and escalating carbon tax
that would promote real energy efficiencies
and cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
But wait, wouldn’t that leave China,
India, and other nations free to undercut
the carbon-tax-inflated prices of goods
from the U.S., the EU, and Japan? Not at all.
Nations that adopt the carbon tax regimen
should impose a carbon tariff equal to the
carbon tax on all manufactured goods from
countries that do not participate.
The Chinese, in particular, would protest
such an action vociferously. Let them.
China is not a developing nation; it is an
authoritarian, industrialized, mercantile
behemoth that is the world’s largest emitter
of greenhouse gases. It is time for the
world to stop allowing China to pretend
otherwise. If China wants to sell its carbontax-free
products to developing nations in
Africa, Asia, and South America, fine.
Many thoughtful economists have put
forth mechanisms whereby a carbon tax
would be truly revenue neutral, simultaneously
discouraging the use of fossil fuels
and stimulating development of alternative
energy sources while protecting less affluent
consumers. It’s time to join forces with
other developed nations to put one in place.
Thanks for reading.
Editor-in-chief
Views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of ACS.