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.
…
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.
Full story (subscription required)
Now there’s art, and then there’s blog smart.
More intimidation to try to make it happen. Maybe Ben Santer can punch everyone out too.
We’re shakin’ in our boots.
Boycott US aircraft? some automobiles? machine tools? in 2020? This weasel should put down his martini or sherry and look around a little. Ha! Mulally’s Boeing sold out manufacturing to China and the rest of the world years ago (check out his legacy with a web search of the Boeing 787/Dream(nightmare)liner. China is now in the airliner business, competing w/Boeing and Airbus, but China realizes (and protects) a strategic (national) business when it sees one. Mulally’s next project is major “Chinafication” (Ford Motor internal code name). Not that Mulally’s done it all by himself, but he seems to be the poster boy for selling out USA assets as fast as possible. Plenty of “help” from US “free”-trade “policy”. Time to short Ford stock if you’re foolish enough to own it. Newly issued GM stock at ~$34/share, while the bailout break-even price is ~$133/share for “the US government” to break even. And US machine tools? Maybe he’s thinking of German cars and machine tools. By 2020, the US will be a 3rd rate player in airliners and cars. Have been a minor player in machine tools for a while. WTF is this clown?
The British government and political ruling elite/class as a whole are in the grip of a kind of insanity.
A madness hangs in the air around them leading them to make insane choices far removed from reality or common sense based value judgements. National defence priorities are ignored while money is lavished on ridiculous white elephant vanity projects, money that could be used for defence equipment purchase from our closet ally the USA is given away in aid to our direct and would be enemies and competitors.
National UK government now appears to be less organized than a chimps tea party and as surreal as a mad hatters tea party, how ironic then that our only saviour could well be an American tea party!
To our Wonderful American brothers and sisters I say, please remember that our ruling class do not represent us, the British people are in the grip of a small minority of fools and idiots who claim to represent us but in reality only represent themselves and their eurotrash masters. There are those in the UK who wish to split us from our best friends and weld us to a foreign and hostile empire wannabe in the form of the budding EUSSR.
There would be no problem if only a couple of ‘daisy cutter MOABs’ could accidentally find their way onto Brussels and Westminster somehow, ah well maybe plan B?
Dont worry “Lord”. I am sure the USA wont use their massive military to open up your markets should you decide to be foolish.
OPEC tried to bully the USA back in the day. And now all but 1 opec member has been bought out with cash or bombed to have their government replaced or backtrack on their aggressive nature. Only 1 actively anti-USA nation in OPEC remains, and the bombs will be falling on that nation within the next decade if not sooner. They have already been isolated by the USA and her allies.
Do you really want to try to force a green version of OPEC? Why leave your nations open to assault by the USA? And they will assault you if you try to undermine them. I know Europe actively yearns for a fall of the USA, but remember, the vacuum to come from that will not be filled from a state in Europe. They will not be a western power, and they wont be friendly to Europe. Enjoy your friendship with a superpower while you still can instead of insulting her. If America falls, western civilization falls.
evanmjones says:
November 19, 2010 at 8:44 pm
We’re shakin’ in our boots.
Well, it is pretty cold.
Cassandra King wrote:
“There would be no problem if only a couple of ‘daisy cutter MOABs’ could accidentally find their way onto Brussels and Westminster somehow, ah well maybe plan B?”
Cassandra, I think I like your line of thought. Or perhaps neutron bombs? Accidentally of course. Though there might be some ironic justice if the missile guidance systems sold to the Chinese by Loral’s Bernie Schwartz w/Bubba Clinton’s approval, managed to misguide their way to Brussels, Westminster and Bernie’s SoCal home. There is some nice architecture in Brussels and Westminster, after all.
We had this idiot appear recently in Australia to push his political economic agenda, spiced with liberal distortions about climate. He was here to join with Ross Garnault his mini me economist with the same rant and author of the Garnault Report. Part of the world wide push by economists to spread their influence and serve the shadowy interest that back them.
Boy this present challenge will be a real test of the US President’s “Metal” to either stand up or bow down as some of you seem to think he will. I guess he is in a somewhat unusual position, facing open threats from STERN to isolate the US economy and then having George Soros standing in the shadows behind him and making dark threats to pull the financial plug on him if he doesn’t produce the results as they pull his strings.
Perhaps he just might prove to have a bit of steel in his backbone and tell them all to go jump – your President, your economy to sell down the river. I hope he stands up because we had a Prime minister (Paul Keating) that bowed down and kissed the ground of Indonesia to sell himself in their support and he didn’t last long after that. strange the media only showed that TV shot once, but that was enough for most thinking Australians.
Dave Springer says: at 3:47 pm I just went and looked at US imports from UK and couldn’t find anything to boycott.
For good or bad, I believe Scotland is still part of the UK and one needs to be careful about who and what one is boycotting.
http://www.scotlandwhisky.com/distilleries/
_Jim says:
November 19, 2010 at 6:22 pm
From another of Gail’s tall-tales:
You are about one hundred years too late. The Brits (Bank of England) sent Paul Warburg to confiscate all of the wealth from the USA and has …
Oh brother more tales from ‘the far side’ … re: ‘confiscation’, please explain Michael Dell, Bill Gates, The “Oracle of Omaha” (Buffet) ?
======================================================
Jim, I hate to be your wet blanket, but you’re confusing tangible value with imagined or inferred wealth. The people you mentioned, have relatively very little tangible value. Most of their wealth is tied to the value of the market shares of their respective companies. Which, when thought of in terms of U.S. dollars, is backed by the good faith and credit of the U.S. treasury. There is no tangible value. Further, their wealth is only as much as the viability of their respective companies. In other words, if the market deems Dell no longer viable, then Mike Dells worth goes to almost nothing, same with MS/Gates and BH/Buffet. Why? With the exception of Dell they produce no tangible goods that hold value, and Dell’s product, the actual value of a PC is negligible. I’m not saying these companies don’t produce worthy products, although Buffet’s probably don’t, I’m saying in the end of the day, if one was to confiscate all the assets of each company, they’d end up with very little. Software, pc cases and maybe a decent server or two, and a lot of paper. No intrinsic value. Gold can easily be converted to goods with intrinsic value.
I probably did a poor job, but I tried to highlight the difference between a inferred wealth and intrinsic value. I hoped that helped.
Stern is the clown who invented a 1.5-2% discount rate in order to “prove” climate intervention is economically justified. Now he has to use guns to force people to lend him money at that rate. What a fool.
What’s with these economists that don’t understand basic economics?
The man is a brilliant. Let’s start a trade war, and solve the AGW problem by tanking the global economy.
Ominous signs that the UN is begining to govern the world and bypass anything that’s still left of the sovereignty of individual nations.
You don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that the mainstream media are being ignored by ever-greater numbers over here in the U.S. of A. ? Not sure if the same phenomenon is happening on the U.K. side of the pond.
The blogosphere (I hate that word) is taking over, the MSM are dying, at least in part because they don’t call these buffoons to task.
well, we have lord stern, and you have al gore, i reckon that makes us even. I live in a town called Rickmansworth, where william penn was married, and lived in basing house in the town, and at penn farm, in chorleywood, both still standing, penn farm a magnificent old building, a half mile from my house. Some of us had to stay!. Lord Stern has never paid a bill in his life, never been hungry or cold, and yet , prescribes for us all.
Are there any genuine politicians now? Answers on the back of a postage stamp please
Lord Stern probably has no idea what taxes are. Considering most industrial processes (especially in the UK and EU) he really has nothing to back himself on.
_Jim says:
November 19, 2010 at 6:22 pm
From another of Gail’s tall-tales:
no tall tales jim
there really was a paul warburg
there really is a federal reserve
they really did confiscate all the gold
we really do have debt-money
several people have pointed out that is the single most important issue we face. and the same thieves who benefit from our debt-money system are simply trying to steal even more of our work through carbon tax and trade
these are are all just scams to take from those who work and give to those who don’t – the owning class
This is such a clear proof of Stern’s disconnect from reality. Trade is being done because it is beneficial for both sides. The idea that the U.K. would “punish” the U.S. by banning any trade is completely preposterous. Chances are that it would be much more devastating for the U.K.
The U.S. takes 14% of the U.K. exports and sends 9% of the U.K. imports. 😉 In total, it’s close to $100 billion a year. Is Mr Stern going to stand in the ports and physically prevent ships with $100 billion to move by another meter? Does he expect the trade partners to say that he is right? I can’t believe that someone like that isn’t yet confined between the walls of a psychiatric asylum.
RE: R. de Haan: (November 19, 2010 at 9:32 am)
“Lord Stern must be afraid that Great Britain’s Green suicide program will bankrupt the country before the US.”
From this video, it sounds like the U.K could even go bankrupt even before the State of California. I do not know how this might come to pass — perhaps an act of Parliament ‘refudiating’ the national debt. I think the implosive economic effects of either event would far exceed the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. Perhaps no nation os state should be allowed to go more than something like five times its gross national annual product in debt.
I have noted that this country is increasingly being blamed for all the problems in the world and a worldwide boycott of the USA would be very serious. I fear, however, that a counter boycott of the UK might bring on the first major killing famine of the modern era there.
Lord Stern might like to trot along to the “City”, and into St Paul’s Cathedral. At the East end is an apse. This end was damaged in WWII and when rebuilt, it was consecrated as the American Memorial Chapel.
This was done for a reason. Thousands of those reasons lie in the American cemetery in Cambridge, and many thousands more across Europe.
Those reasons, gave Stern the right and freedom to be a “plonker”.
Ignore him, that is what they hate most.
Oh, and sorry about this, but if obama was born in kenya, that means he is British.
( see, ya still cant get away from us!)
I just wanted to say (although I still read all the site) that I stopped posting on here a few weeks back due to the sometimes slack-jawed responses (of which I was very disappointed). When I read the headline to this I just knew we were going to have the usual suspects on a bizarre anti-British rant. Some 300 posts in now, it’s too late to remind some that Stern’s ridiculous posture isn’t about trade boycotts based on trade, but based on climate change. Yet so many here have managed to turn it into some childish attack on Britain! At fear of sounding pompous, I really do think the level of intelligent debate on here has gone down in recent months – I don’t know why.
Should have provided a link to St Paul’s American Chapel:
Well worth a visit if you’re over here, and you’re very welcome too:-
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Files/downloads/Dove_in_stained_glass_in_the_American_Memorial_Chapel.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Cathedral-History/Explore-the-Cathedral-Floor&usg=__DM9JwHK2gBK57SfRqJMY3DLZoo0=&h=4992&w=3328&sz=1263&hl=en&start=3&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=m61jucE2hei9yM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=100&prev=/images%3Fq%3DApse%2Band%2BAmerican%2BMemorial%2BChapel%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-gb:IE-ContextMenu%26rlz%3D1I7GGLL_en-GB%26tbs%3Disch:1