Morning Bell: Outsourcing Your Tax Dollars

Conn Carroll / August 28, 2009

During a July 7th Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the 1,500 page Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade legislation, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) got Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson to admit that “U.S. action alone will not impact CO2 levels.”  This is 100% consistent with all the best science which shows that the carbon reductions under Waxman-Markey will not affect global temperatures in any material way. For example a recent study of cap-and-trade by MIT concluded:

The different U.S. policies have relatively small effects on the CO2 concentration if other regions do not follow the U.S. lead…The Developed Only scenario cuts only about 0.5 °C of the warming from the reference, again illustrating the importance of developing country participation.

As we have asked before, “So how is that ‘developing country participation’ going?” Well, just this week ministers from 10 African countries renewed their intent to demand billions of dollars in aid before they sign any climate agreement and both China and India have also made it crystal clear that they require billions in aid to help finance carbon-reducing projects before they agree to reduce their emissions. (more…)