Government and Taxes: eco-protectionism

Showing posts with label eco-protectionism. Show all posts

Monday, September 28, 2015

Free Trade 54, Eco-protectionism at APEC 2015 meeting

Eco-protectionism is wrong. The idea that countries and economies should erect new trade barriers on top of existing ones, tariff or non-tariff, to cut carbon emission is wrong. Trade precedes growth and development, inclusive or otherwise.

Here is an example of eco-protectionism, from a PH planet saviour climate official during the APEC meeting in Iloilo City last week. He said,

“If you (APEC economies) are not prepared to address (disaster risk issues), then there is no trade to speak of,”

1. PH climate change official tells APEC: No trade without addressing disaster risk...

INTERAKSYON.COM

http://www.interaksyon.com/.../ph-climate-change-official...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Warming Hysteria: From GW to CC, Green Protectionism

Yesterday, I gave a talk at the Las Pinas Chamber of Commerce and Industry, a local branch of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The President of Las Pinas CCI, Mohammad Yasin Badr, is my friend, my "classmate" in Rotary Intl. Dist 3830. The title of my paper was "Warming time out amidst climate hysteria" (22 slides, 1.5MB). It should be posted in our website within the week, www.minimalgovernment.net.

Another friend and "classmate" in rotary, Rodolfo "Inky" Reyes, who is a top official of the Philippine National Red Cross (PNRC), is in Nairobi, Kenya, for an International Red Cross assembly and meeting. Inky said that if I were in their event, I would love the discussions on climate change (CC).

Well, if I were in Nairobi, I'm sure I would figure in endless debates with many participants there who believe in anthropogenic [man-made] global warming or AGW. The warmers have almost monopolized the discussion for at least 2 decades that it is considered a sacrilegious act to even question AGW, much more to present charts and data that contradict that claim. That is why they declared a few years ago, "There is no more debate, shut up." And it is that dictatorial mindset that somehow crippled public debate, until the global temp data -- tropospheric and surface station data, ocean heat and ocean level data, Arctic temp. and Arctic ice extent data, etc. -- showed that there was NO warming that is happening for the past 10 years. The data have a negative answer to the Rotary test, "Is it the truth?"

The shift from GW to CC was a face-saving act by the warmers. They saw the temperature data, the warming years that should happen now as predicted by their computer models did not happen. So CC is used more often while retaining the warming scare. That is, melting polar ice and Greenland ice (due to GW), that will result in rising ocean by up to 7 meters (about 2 storeys high) just 90 years from now, according to Al Gore, more hurricanes, more typhoons-more drought, etc.

The important point is: there is NO scientific consensus yet of AGW and CC. Big debates still happening.

So if there is no consensus, there should be NO global coercion in energy and environment policies. But here we are, debating how much carbon emission cut by whom and by when. Kill or over-tax cheap energy sources like coal, subsidize from tax money clean but expensive and low-power output wind farms and solar farms, create climate bureaucracies from the national to provincial levels (look at political has-been Heherson Alvarez, now a "climate czar" secretary). And a number of politicians made big money putting up ethanol and bio-diesel plants because all oil companies, big and small, are forced to buy from them because of the mandatory E10 gas and B5 diesel products.

Further money from CC alarmism -- carbon taxes (in the US, about $300 billion/year in Obama cap and trade bill alone, on top of existing federal environmental taxes, on top of existing state and county env'l taxes), carbon trading (in 2008, $128 billion from corporations in the EU, Japan, etc., excl. the US as the US is not a signatory to Kyoto), carbon tariff and eco-protectionism.

So it's the distortions in energy, environment, fiscal and trade policies in almost all countries in the world that are being targeted by the warmers. Ecological central planning is a pernicious game plan. Some of those central planners wish that we stop riding our cars soon and ride bicycles "to save the planet" while they're jet-setting almost every month in endless global climate meetings, not to mention national and provincial climate meetings.
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My related short papers recently:

(1) Warmers' Intellectual Dishonesty Uncovered

November 22, 2009

As incriminating emails and documents from the hacked website of, or stolen data from, the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in UK are spreading like wildfire in the web, the extent of intellectual dishonesty, if not intellectual prostitution, of a number of known warming scientists, are discovered. It's chilling to hear or read how those scientists deliberately alter or hide info that can show decline in global temperatures.

The most exposed scientists are Phil Jones, the head of CRU, and Michael Mann, main author of the "hockey stick" shape of global warming chart.

I wonder what alibi, if any, they can produce since the number of emails and documents that all seem to be original, are just too many? But if they admit that they indeed lied, that they indeed prostituted science for their political designs and desire for millions of dollars of research contracts, then that should be the end of their scientific career. They better go to the most isolated islands or the most uninhabitable place on Earth, with no internet or electricity, to escape global ridicule.

(2) No to Green Protectionism

November 17, 2009

Consumers need more choices and options, not more restrictions and prohibitions. Trade protectionism via carbon taxes and similar schemes limit choices and create more poverty, which push more poor people to use more environmentally-degrading technologies.

Please sign the petition against eco-protectionism,
http://www.policynetwork.net/trade/news/petition-against-green-protectionism

The opening paragraph of the petition says it clearly:

You have no doubt heard about the UN’s climate conference in Copenhagen next month. Chief among the bad ideas being touted by environmental activists and politicians in the run-up to that meeting is a proposal to permit trade restrictions on the grounds that they will help to prevent climate change (for example by encouraging governments to sign up and comply with an international agreement to restrict emissions). Pascal Lamy, director of the World Trade Organization, has even sanctioned this approach, saying that the world’s priorities should be “climate first and trade, second.” And – surprise surprise – uncompetitive industries and other vested interests have jumped on the bandwagon.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

China Watch 6: China-India Blog, Eco-Protectionism

My good friend from Delhi, India, Barun Mitra, opened a new blog called
http://chinaindiacitizensinitiative.blogspot.com/

It's a good blog, it encourages the citizens of the two biggest countries in the world in terms of population size to a civil and high level discussion and dialogue.

One of Barun's posting is entitled "China and India agree on a common platform on climate change". It was a good observation by Barun that the 2 countries have formed a number of important joint positions, like (a) both will not agree to legally-binding norms, (b) both will oppose trade barriers linked to climate change issues, and (c) both will undertake joint mitigation activities to reduce carbon emission.

I am just wondering if there are enough known Indian and Chinese climate scientists, preferably solar physicists, who can explain to the Environment Ministry, the legislators and the public of both countries, that the current global cooling and deep solar minimum is a prelude to a Dalton Minimum type of 2 or more decades of severe cooling. And that CO2 has very little or nothing to do with global climate.

The environmental scammers and bureaucrats cannot understand solar cycle dynamics and Sun-climate link. They only understand CO2-warming theory and even this theory is highly discredited by current global cooling, at least over the past 7 years.

Australia's parliament set a good precedent by killing PM Rudd's cap and trade or emission trading system (ETS) bill. I sincerely hope that India and China governments will kill efforts to propagate poverty by making their otherwise cheap energy sources very expensive to "fight" a non-existent enemy. It should be impossible for China and India to grow fast and lift from poverty hundreds of millions of their poor citizens if their energy sources become very expensive. Even the poorest rice farmer need gasoline for his hand tractor. Even the poorest rural villagers need some electricity for their house, for their children's studies. Now the UN IPCC and FCCC bureaucrats, almost all of whom are non-scientists (Pachauri of IPCC is an economist, de Boer of FCCC is a diplomat), want energy prices to be as expensive as possible even for the poor countries, so that said bureaucrats can "save" the Earth from global warming?

A related note, below is my oped paper that was published by The China Post: last April:

What's killing the poor is poverty

Friday, April 4, 2008
By Nonoy Oplas, Special to The China Post

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/the%20china%20post/special%20to%20the%20china%20post/2008/04/04/150307/p1/What%27s-killing.htm

There is a growing notion that rich countries should slash imports from poor countries whose antiquated factories are heavy carbon emitters: this eco-protectionism is in fact good old-fashioned protectionism and would hit the poor hardest.

"We want a binding decision now that we will take measures to protect [EU] industries in 2012 in case there is not agreement," European Union Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told London's The Times this March, talking about import curbs to protect Europe's energy-intensive industries.

Import duties or compulsory carbon quota purchases on goods "from countries that refuse [carbon] restriction efforts seems therefore indispensable," French President Nicolas Sarkozy wrote to Barroso in January.

This week, the U.N. official in charge of climate talks on climate change in Bangkok, Yvo de Boer, evoked the specter of "food miles" -- a tax on imported food: the greater the distance, the higher the fee. In fact, you get fewer carbon emissions overall by growing green beans in Kenya and flying them to Europe in big bad aeroplanes than you do by growing them in Europe and selling them at a charming rural farmers' market.

This is just another protectionist racket that would do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions. What it would do is push up food prices at a time when high prices are causing street protests from Mexico to India and Cote d'Ivoire.

Such trade sanctions would slow down worldwide economic growth but not climate change.

Trade barriers would not even help industries in developed countries. After benefiting a few industries in the short-term, they would eventually raise costs for industry and consumers -- stifling growth, innovation and competitivity in world markets.

"Goals to reduce EU emissions by 50-80 percent by 2050 are pointless if this is done through pollution displacement -- by increasingly importing CO2-intensive products from the rest of the world. For the EU to reduce its global CO2 emissions, systemic changes to the European economy are needed," a recent World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report said. The WWF wants developed countries to import "cleaner" goods but climate activists, unions, Barroso and Sarkozy want developed countries to cut their imports of CO2-intensive goods, especially from China, India, South Africa and Brazil. The European Trade Union Confederation demands "carbon taxes" on imports.

Copyright © 2008 The China Post.
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See also:
China Watch 1: World's Largest Economies, Population, 2005, April 20, 2006
China Watch 2: China's Tourism, May 17, 2006
China Watch 3: World's Largest Traders, 2004, June 03, 2006
China Watch 4: Chinese Nationalism, Tibet, April 23, 2008
China Watch 5: China's New Patent Law, February 10, 2009

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Free Trade 7: Class War, Eco-protectionism and Climate

Two weeks ago, Dr. John Rutledge posted in his blog (www.rutledgeblog.com) a paper, "Protectionism and the Philippine class war", in reaction to an oped by the Manila Times, "Poverty in the middle of plenty".

I have met John last May in Honolulu during the "Pacific Rim Conference" and he was our dinner guest speaker in the first day of the 2-days conference.

John wrote,

"There are important parallels with the (Philippines and) current US situation.

1) Class war leads to punitive, growth-destroying tax, trade and regulatory policies.

2) Class-war driven tax policies can drive offshore exactly the valuable resources needed to crete jobs and improve family incomes.

3) Protectionism is extremely destructive for growth and incomes. It can permanently mire an economy in poverty.

4) Once started, protectionism is hard to stop because it creates vested and well-funded political interests that want it to continue forever...."

I commented in his blog not to believe the Manila Times oped. There is no "class war" in the Philippines (and many other developing economies) because there are many "classes" or "enclaves" that were not prominent just 2 decades ago.

Entertainers, showbiz personalities, professional basketball players, boxers, IT professionals, advertisers, academics and consultants, traders, media broadcasters and columnists, travel agents, physicians, lawyers, engineers, accountants, top government bureaucrats, politicians, dozen-plus other categories, are making it big and very rich in the Philippines. They are neither "exploiting capitalists" and "exploited workers" in the old Marxist dichotomy of "class war", or "feudal lords" and "exploited peasants" in the old Maoist dichotomy of "class war".

Recently, many people here are getting rich not by becoming overseas workers, or by becoming investors in business process outsourcing (bpo), but by catering to millions of foreign tourists, especially the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese, Americans, Europeans, coming here to enjoy the white sand beaches, or wonderful golf courses, or for cosmetics and beautification surgery, or simply to learn English language cheaper.

It is true that economic and trade protectionism causes economic stagnation. While free trade gives consumers lots of choices, protectionism limits choice to a few domestic producers that were blessed by the state to be the sole providers of the things and services needed by the people.
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On Eco-Protectionism

There is a proposal made by some groups and politicians in rich countries, that trade protectionism by rich and industrialized countries can be justified because these countries are consuming goods by “carbon-surplus” developing countries. While rich countries focus on emission cuts, many developing countries expand their gas emission as they export and industrialize more, which worsens global warming goes their argument. Thus, to correct and mitigate this problem, exports by developing countries (mainly China, India, Brazil, others) will soon be slapped with a “carbon tax” on top of existing import duties and related taxes by rich countries.

This will be one of the big rackets resulting from climate change alarmism – the idea that with climate change being mostly man-made, then men should be so alarmed and cut their gas emission and possibly, cut their production and consumption, which can possibly cut economic growth and job creation.

So in the case of eco-protectionism, otherwise cheap imports from developing countries should be made expensive to consumers of rich countries in order to discourage high consumption of goods produced by poorer countries, and hopefully reduce gas emission there.

The argument looks cute and appealing, but it does not make much sense for a number of reasons.

First, a portion of the pollution created in poor and exporting countries are the pollution and gas emission that should have taken place in rich countries if those imported commodities are produced there. This process of “outsourcing” production and emission in poor countries should be recognized by the consumers and policy-makers of rich countries.

Take exports powerhouse China. Most of its exports are energy-intensive, and it makes many of the highly polluting manufactured products that used to be made in the US, Europe and Japan. The smoke-stack power plants and industries were exported to China and other developing countries and the products made from those polluting industrial plants are imported into rich countries.

Second, reducing importation of rich countries from poor countries – through imposition of “carbon tax” on top of regular import tax – even if such trade protectionism is limited to so-called “energy-intensive, low value-added” products, will slow down but not stop, further economic growth and industrialization of developing countries. When countries are poor, people there tend to use dirtier technologies, like buying 2nd- or 3rd-hand vehicle engines and assemble their own rickety vehicles that are less fuel efficient and consume more petroleum products per kilometer of distance traveled. Which again, worsens pollution and global warming.

Third, creating artificial scarcity of certain commodities in rich countries because of reduced importation from poor countries which do not have carbon emission constraints, will further widen the gap between rich country price and poor country price of the same or similar goods. Two results will happen and they are both environmentally bad.

One, lower imports by rich countries as a result of such artificial scarcity will lead to higher inflation there, which will adversely affect the income of individuals and profitability of companies there, which ultimately will reduce their capacity to invest in more environment-friendly but expensive technologies and production processes.

And two, lower exports by poor countries as a result of eco-protectionism will slow down if not depress their national income, which will adversely affect their capacity to import products from rich countries, especially more fuel-efficient cars, less energy-intensive machineries and less-polluting production technologies.

Meanwhile, where will the additional revenues from carbon tax go? Most likely to pay for the salaries and perks of additional bureaucrats at the Finance and Environment Ministries of rich countries, who will be hired to compute how much new gas emissions were created by developing country so and so and how much will be the "countervailing" carbon tax to be imposed for their exports.

Free trade has only one unique and very important merit: to give consumers more choices. And more choice means more freedom. Hijacking free trade to advance certain environmental advocacies, even labor or human (and animal) rights advocacies, is wrong. Penalizing producers in poor countries with trade restrictions and protectionism because they are allegedly using less environment-friendly and/or more energy-intensive technologies will immediately reduce the range of choices for ordinary consumers in rich countries. But worse than this, such trade protectionism will restrict economic growth of those countries, which will limit their capacity to invest in more energy-efficient and environment-friendly technologies and production processes.

In short, eco-protectionism as a result of climate change alarmism will only succeed in making the planet dirtier, while pushing more people to poverty and economic stagnation.
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See also:
Free Trade 1: Estonia's Free Market, Globalization, May 09, 2006
Free Trade 2: Unilateral Trade Liberalization, May 17, 2006
Free Trade 3: Protectionism Perpetuate Poverty, September 05, 2006
Free Trade 4: FTA in APEC, July 09, 2007
Free Trade 5: Business, Rock Music and Cycling Globalization, July 17, 2007
Free Trade 6: Counterfeit Drugs Worldwide, December 21, 2007

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