I read today that Poland, already Europe’s largest coal producer, is planning to dramatically increase production to meet the energy demands of its growing economy. I would never begrudge another country’s efforts to grow its economy – the U.S., after all, has grown wealthy thanks in no small part to our abundance of coal – but increased use of coal power in Poland will lead to higher carbon dioxide emissions at a time when many countries are working hard to reduce them.
But I think a U.S. carbon cap would help keep the increase in carbon emissions to a minimum, not only here at home, but also in growing countries like Poland. A cap will encourage technological innovations in the coal industry that can then be sold to nations with developing economies. Simply reducing emissions in the U.S. is not enough to make a long-term, global impact on climate change, but the end result of a carbon cap will hopefully be lower carbon emissions both here and abroad. Add the environmental benefits to the financial benefits that would be gained by exporting new technologies, and it sounds like a win-win to me.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2007 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Cap and Trade, International Environmental News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
