Climate Wars: Nick Stern Threatens U.S. With Trade Boycott
Ben Webster
The United States will be banned from selling goods to many countries if it continues to shirk its promise to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to the world’s leading climate change economist.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said that nations that were taking strong action on emissions could start imposing restrictions on “dirty” US exports by 2020.
Lord Stern, who advises several G20 leaders and is one of the key players in the international negotiations seeking a deal on emissions, made his comments ten days before the annual United Nations climate change conference opens in Cancun, Mexico. They reflect the feeling in many countries that a lack of action on emissions in the US is delaying progress in the talks.
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Lord Stern said that Europe and the Far East (sic) were forging ahead of the US in controlling emissions and switching to low carbon sources of energy. They would not tolerate having their industries undermined by American competitors that had not paid for their emissions. “If you are charging properly for carbon and other people are not, you will take that into account,” he said. “Many of the more forward-looking people in the US are thinking about this. If they see a danger on the trade front to US exports that could influence public discussion.”
Asked what type of US products could face restrictions, Lord Stern said: “Aircraft, clearly, some cars, machine tools — it’s not simply what’s in the capital good, it’s what kind of processes the capital good is facilitating.”
Lord Stern said that a complete ban on some goods was also possible. He said the American people should overcome their historical antipathy to taxation and accept that emissions needed to be controlled either through a tax or a trading scheme.
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Oh, we could always buy British goods instead. 😉
Very Stern-like. What I don’t understand is why he doesn’t promote tariffs against China because their low wages and poor working conditions are clearly giving them a competitive advantage against the US and Europe.
Is Stern an economist?
We need to get this guy on TV over here. 5Mins of him will be worth a hundred studies of flawed methodologies and poor statistics.
What a tosser…a UK economist saying that they will boycott the USA…..jeez…start a trade war that will, can’t wait. I’m sure you yanks are really quaking in your boots….Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.
On the other hand …maybe he will be seen to be what he really is, now by his friend the UK Prime Minister David Camerlunatic and his ‘greenist’ party.
Stern is an ecofacist…..
Presumably the trade ban would extend to banning goods from China, India and now Canada, the list gets longer by the day.
Who does Lord Stern think he is kidding!
And imports from China and India will be banned when, exactly? If hypocrisy were gold, this guy could pay England’s debt himself.
“American people should overcome their historical antipathy to taxation”
Like the rest of the world just love to be taxed.
We Brits have a word for people like ‘Lord’ Stern who spout such nonsense.
The work is “plonker”.
Another barmy Brit; he of the “stop eating meat” variety.
I have no idea how the man became a professor, but he seems determined to stop breeding pigs and cows, because they contaminate the atmosphere with far too much methane, which he reckons is 23x more effective as a GHG than the dreaded CO2.
Think it’s more like 26x, but don’t tell him.
Also, don’t tell him that much of any methane ‘contamination’ did not come from domesticated animals, but from the Russian trans-continental pipeline, which they have now repaired.
They will have to add Canada to the list…
Presumably as China is now the largest emitter of CO2 this embargo will also be applied to them.
Lord Stern can take his “conceptual mistake” comments and go [/snip] himself. Making people pay money to a government whether directly or in the purchase of some good or service is a tax, no matter how you play the semantics game. They want to isolate us? Good. We’ll stop saving their [/snip]s when some dictator uses these same tactics to gain too much strength and takes over all of Europe. Enjoy your bullying of America Europe and Asia. Don’t come to us to bail you out of your self-imposed consequences. We’ll still be here and will be using all those horrible “dirty” fuels that we have an abundance of (which we’ll be able to do once the greenies here are told to go sit down and shut up).
I’ll do it myself. Snip, snip, snip, double snip. I think that about covers it.
Call his bluff, pompous, ignorant idiot.
It won’t happen while the dollar is still world’s reserve currency. Just look at how flooding a few $100 billion into the monetary pool scared the world shitless.
And that’s just the direct negative effects of such an action upon these countries’ economies. Can you picture the effects on Asia and Latin America if the US responded by instituting a “human rights tarrif” where we tarrifed goods made by workers in conditions that didn’t meet our standards – only foreign owned companies of course; American owned companies in foreign lands would be exempted?
The gentleman has been singing this song for some time now, for example in OZ recently, because I suppose he feels it puts pressure on countries before Cancun.
It is pure codswallop because the WTO regime does not allow for such a thing and countries do not start trade wars on the say so of eccentric economists: not least from one whose great report on AGW has been so thoroughly debunked.
That is why I imagine he suggests that this will happen in ten years or so, safely far enough in the future to be forgotten by then. When it does not happen.
Pure alarmist grandstanding with a bullying line mixed in. Just a different tack. How very unusual.
One for the circular filing tray I fancy.
Kindest Regards
I see myself as more Scottish than British, but all the same I would like to apologise profusely for the imbecilic utterances of Lord Stern on behalf on the all or at least the majority of people from these isles.
By 2020, Even this idiot will have asked a few farmers whether crops grow better at 12 degrees C (54 F), the current average global temperature, or at 22 degrees C (72F), the norma and maximum per the 600 million year fossil record.
By 202, a few people will have found out what photosynthesis is, and will have decided this idiot would cause the death of half the human race and thousands of extinctions if we act on his advice.
We have nothing to worry about on this boycott threat.
Just the possibility that anybody WILL believe him enough to act and more countries will follow Zimbabwe’s example of anything but “carbon” and destroy the biosphere.
Usually it’s a bad idea to threaten America.
Why is it that so many clever men give every indication of being complete idiots?
What an idiot , one sure fire way to get the USA’s back up is pushing ideas like this , meanwhile both China and Indian will tell him were to stick the idea too. So what is left a handful of EU countries that is until election time they laws which will mean massive increases in prices will look at as popular as fish that has been dead for 2 weeks.
Lots of talk and threats and nothing to back them up with , sadly for Stern he is looking increasingly unlike to be making big money out of carbon trading any time soon. Never mind.
This is the world’s “leading” climate change economist?
Good luck with that boycott, Nick, you’ll need it. Something tells me that England needs us more than we need them. Just because the Brits decided to gut their economy doesn’t need we need to follow them down the tubes.
And as for his thought that “… the American people should overcome their historical antipathy to taxation and accept that emissions needed to be controlled either through a tax or a trading scheme…” I have two words – Screw you.
Anger and then despair. These folks have invested their lives and reputations to this hoax. They will fall really hard if they can’t get their way.
What makes this begger think he can tell Americans what to do? Everybody loses in a trade war. What promise? I don’t recall the Senate ratifying any promise. Quite the opposite. “Forging ahead?” Sounds like fabricating a loo; makes me want to go join a Tea Party. This flamboyant, spittle-spewing posturing is another example of the End of Warmist Days, as the wheels come off the worldwide hoax.
This is the type of comment I like from these people, they have no idea how to address people who are not fooled by their self important rhetoric. More to the point it puts the back up of people who have not yet abandoned the AGW hype. Bring it on lord Stern you have my blessing.
Why do the greens always harp on the US emissions.
China by 2020 will be burning coal like a speeding locomotive
Will the worlds countries stop buying “dirty” Chinese exports?.