Word: co2
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...high and mighty from around the world to address the weighty issues of the day at a plush resort. The theme of the conference was "Green China," and if there was a single underlying idea, it was that China, having just become the world's largest emitter of CO2 gases, was going to jump wholeheartedly on the global bandwagon to combat climate change. But on the conference's final day, during the main event and keynote address, President Hu Jintao talked about China's commitment to economic reform, to maintaining its extraordinary pace of economic growth, to opening China...
...same). Western environmental scientists and activists - who had directed most of their attention (and ire) at George W. Bush's U.S. - finally began embracing reality: China, with 1.3 billion people grasping the higher living standards that industrialization and market economics have brought, had only just begun to spew CO2 into the atmosphere, and it was already the No. 1 emitter. If climate change was the great global threat that the doomsayers believed it was and if there was to be a more effective global response post Kyoto (the 1997 treaty that failed, 96-0, in the U.S. Senate), China...
...Frenchman: the French have for several years levied a compulsory tax on airline tickets to help fund development projects and have long sought to get others to join them, with mixed success. Brazil is one of only a few countries to have followed suit. Norway also taxes airline CO2 emissions and uses the receipts for overseas aid. (Read "France Considers a Tax on Carbon Emissions...
...Sweden, Denmark and Finland all imposed similar levies as early as the 1990s, but France - should its lawmakers approve the plan - will become the biggest country yet to try taxes to slow global warming. Initially set at $25 per ton of emitted carbon dioxide (CO2), the tax on the use of oil, natural gas and coal would nudge up the cost of a liter of petrol by $0.06 ($0.23 a gallon), Sarkozy said, and diesel by a little more, helping generate roughly $4.4 billion in annual revenues. A pledge to return that money to taxpayers through various new rebates...
...uses of energy. Critics of taxes say that they're open to fluctuation and that certain industries can win exemptions, undermining a tax's efficacy. Opponents of cap and trade systems, meantime, level similar charges. This much is sure: while taxes might fix the short-term cost of emitting CO2, helping homes and businesses figure out how much to invest in energy saving measures, they don't guarantee a drop in emissions. Cap and trade schemes, on the other hand, set the desired emissions level first. "If our aim is to reduce emissions," says Jonathan Lash, president of the World...