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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Is the sad pillock trying to start a war now (trade or worse)? It’s one thing to spout a load of empty rhetoric and bravado with Can/Cantcun coming up but this is completely off the wall. The man is clearly barking. For some obscure reason he always puts me in mind of Lord Haw-Haw…
Watermelon calling … Watermelon calling. Get your worthless fiat carbon credits here.
harrywr2 says:
November 19, 2010 at 9:52 am
While they are at it they can keep their stinking AirBuses as well.
…..Their exploding up Air-Buses 🙂
BTW, it seems that in their effort for making Green airplanes they have exaggerated and made them from a wafered material: Aluminum-Carbon Fiber-Aluminum, in this order, which is : Conductor-dielectric-conductor = A flying condenser, ready to blow up… if there is some charge around.
Lord Stern really knows how the world works. Now, let’s determine climate policy on coercion. (aka, the Lord Butt?)
If everybody else is jumping off a cliff, should we jump, too? NO!!!!!
His idea is to cripple ALL economies at the same time. It’s just not fair if everybody does not shoot themselves in the foot at the same time. There country with two feet would have the unfair advantage, of being sane as well as right.
” a lack of action on emissions in the US is delaying progress in the talks”
Which progress?
Where are the people now, telling us in the past to stick with science, not politics here?
It’s all about politics, not environment anymore.
steveta_uk says:
November 19, 2010 at 9:07 am
We Brits have a word for people like ‘Lord’ Stern who spout such nonsense.
The word is “plonker”.
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Close, Steve. The word I was thinking of rhymes with banker
“American people should overcome their historical antipathy to taxation”
We did. In 1776. Sod off, Swampy.
Pitiful, ain’t it?
Just as our then-current understanding of the universe’s physical laws made it clear from the beginning that the atmospheric carbon dioxide forcing mechanism at the root of the preposterous anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis couldn’t cause significant climate change when this nonsense was first bruited by third-rate idiots masquerading as climatologists more than thirty years ago, a reasonable knowledge of the laws of economics informs the reader here that the fantasmagorical threats of sanctions proposed by Lord Stern of Brentford would have no effect whatsoever as an inducement for civil government in these United States “to cut greenhouse gas emissions.”
Just how is it that this Nick Stern character is supposed to be “he world’s leading climate change economist,” anyway?
Insofar as I’ve been able to determine, he doesn’t seem to understand anything about political economics if he thinks that foreign government policies restricting purchases of U.S. manufactures could have any impact whatsoever upon the electoral choices of the citizens of our Republic. We just finished slaughtering the “global warming” freaks of the National Socialist Democrat American Party (NSDAP) in the midterm elections, and the junior chamber of the incoming 112th Congress – you know, the House of Representatives, which is responsible for setting the federal budget – is getting ready to de-fund the EPA is our Fraudulence-in-Chief persists in using that agency to criminally impose carbon dioxide emissions restrictions on the people of this country.
Not to mention the fact that some several states’ legislatures (which went overwhelmingly over to Republican Party control on 2 November 2010) have been ever more seriously considering secession as a means of securing needed relief from the economic devastation being imposed upon them from Mordor-on-the-Potomac.
Lord Stern can propose a beat-down on Boeing, f’rinstance, which would hurt the daylights out of interests in Kansas and Washington State. But would the people of Texas give the least little bitty damn?
And considering what Lord Stern’s desired “greenhouse gas emissions” cuts would do to the Lone Star State, if our criminal President-With-An-Asterisk were to attempt such measures, we might just see the first of these United States repudiate federal control altogether, declaring all these EPA regulatory measures null and void within their jurisdictions.
Next step might then be for the legislature in Austin to enact a law requiring every candidate for President of these United States to put before the state government documentary proof of eligibility under Article 2, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution, or he doesn’t get onto the ballot in Texas.
So where’s your birth certificate, you slimy bastich?
Lord Stern of Brentford needs to learn to live with disappointment, the stupid schmuck.
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…he said, adding that it was a “conceptual mistake” to see charging for emissions as a tax.
Maybe if we just call it Cash Flow Disruption…
The main thing I see in these comments is a lot of ‘Brit bashing’. As an ex Brit now living in Canada all I can say is – please remember that it is not the voice of the people you are hearing when you see these stories. The majority of Brits have a great deal of respect for America and spitting venomous threats to each other over the pond isn’t going to make this any better. The sooner the idiots in charge realize this (or get kicked out), the happier everyone will be in both countries.
I am sure there is a great deal of discontent in the UK right now as the voters have no viable options to vote for – all sides are green – so please don’t kick the people while they are down because the upper levels are frittering away their livelihood on a global p*ssing contest.
Here’s hoping the whole thing collapses soon so they can keep the lights on,
Tony
[Reply: Thanks for making that distinction. The problem is government, not the governed. ~dbs, mod.]
Well, an all-out trade war would certainly cut global emissions. . . when the entire world economy crashes.
I wonder what the “punishment” for China will be.
Lord Stern will soon realize his hot air rhetoric will just fuel the flames of protectionism. The EU needs North America more than North America needs them. When he finally realizes this he will shut-up or be shut-up.
“Jeremy says:
November 19, 2010 at 9:13 am
Usually it’s a bad idea to threaten America.”
Except this time, President Obama will probably apologize.
Jack Maloney says: “We could dress up as Green Weenies and dump their carbon permits into Boston Harbor and…nah, it’s been done before…”
Still, I like it.
When we Brits start to blackmail you Yanks, you know the game is up! The whole AGW business was created by “scientist-politicians” in the US/UK, and there’s no point in bleating now that the senior partner has finally seen the light. I always believed that only America could get us out of this mess, lead by the pragmatic common sense of her people.
O/T: Writing as a proud Englishman, I would have very much preferred that we had become a US State, rather than a region of the EU, but were never given the option. However, it may not be too late yet, so if the response to this proposal is positive, I’ll start my own blog site – WUWT!
Oh, the poor warmies are getting desperate now.
The problem is that there’s no downside for these clowns. When we finally get this filthy rock flipped over and expose all the dung beetles like Stern to the light of day, they’ll just bank their money from this scam and scurry on to the next rock.
Hmm. I think I remember something about Tea, Boston Harbor, and an English
King. Oh yeah! Taxes were involved there too…
Nicholas Stern (extract from Wikipedia)
After his time working for the World Bank, Stern was recruited by Gordon Brown, he was, in July 2005, appointed to conduct reviews on the economics of climate change and also of development, which led to the publication of the Stern Review. At the time, he ceased to be a second permanent secretary at the Treasury though he retained the rank until retirement in 2007; the review team he headed was based in the Cabinet Office.
It was reported that Stern’s time at the Treasury was marked by tensions with his boss, Gordon Brown.
Several Whitehall sources told The Times that Mr Brown did not like some of the advice he received from Sir Nicholas, including some “home truths” about long-term trends in the economy and he never broke into the chancellor’s tight-knit inner circle he subsequently lacked a real role and spent most of his time working on major international reports on global warming and alleviating poverty in Africa. His doom-laden report on the risks of failing to address climate change, published in October, caused tensions within the Government by triggering a debate on environmental taxes and leading to calls for big policy changes.
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This guy is a proven ‘birk’ aka of the educated idiot type. As you can see this person even failed to impress Gordon Brown. That is could be considered as being the ‘Gold Standard’ of failure.
He failed to see the significance of the closure of steelworks in Britain to be shipped to India in economic terms while he was still ‘advising’ Brown. Never mind the loss of 5000 jobs in Britain. I suspect he would even sanction the import of the steel from India where it is smelted by electric energy produced from coal fired plants.
Douglas
In the meantime the head of the IMF is telling European sovereign governments to save their countries by giving up more of their sovereignty and allowing direct taxation by the EU on, amongst other things, Carbon Emissions.
Pattern ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8146842/IMF-chief-Dominique-Strauss-Kahn-urges-leaders-to-cede-more-sovereignty-to-EU.html
He must have a lot invested in the Carbon Trading Market and is getting scared of losing his cash when it goes belly-up. Follow the money – perhaps he put all his pension pot into renewables!!
Will he be applying similar sanctions to China or India I wonder?
I understand that dirty coal power stations in China are a significant contributor to soot in our atmosphere and deposited on our ice reserves. Rumour has it that this is rather more potent at melting ice than seeohtwo.
I’m sure LORD Stern will be rigorous in tethering sanctions to causes, which may mean minor readjustments to his proposals in the face of evidence-based assignation of appropriate blame……
Won’t he????
i am all for it.
maybe the u.s. would start producing stuff again.
TheChuckr says:
“Except this time, President Obama will probably apologize.”
And his bow reflex will be triggered. The Bower-in-Chief.
I realise that it is fun to bash the Brits but I would like to point out a few things
This idiot is nothing to do with our present government
He was given the task of writing the “Stern Report” by the socialist lot we kicked out at the last election.
He is in the House of Lords but that means absolutely nothing in this case especially as he was nominated by the aforementioned socialist lot.
He is an out and out activist (Chair of The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment) and will hopefully be ignored.
It sounds like this idiot has found a way to finish off the EU. It isn’t like they aren’t hanging by a thread or anything. I bet Spain, Greece, and Ireland just can’t wait to boycott the US. Wait! What is that sound? Sounds like flushing …