BRUSSELS: The European Union started with the most high-minded of ecological goals: to create a market that would encourage companies to reduce greenhouse gases by making them pay for each ton emitted into the atmosphere.What's that? It didn't work? Well...then...we'll do it too.
Four years later, the carbon trading system has created a multibillion-euro windfall for some of the continent's biggest polluters, with little or no noticeable benefit to the environment so far.
The lessons learned are coming under fresh scrutiny now, both in Europe and abroad. EU leaders will meet Thursday and Friday to work on the next phase of their system, seeking, they say, both to extend its scope and correct its flaws. And in the United States, President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to move quickly on a similar program.
This has to be one of the biggest FUBAR's of all time. I tried categorizing the incompetence as I read through the article...but lost count of the individual examples of outright ineptitude. First they scrap the "pay for the permit" by handing them out free. The companies that were to be tempered by the cost of emitting carbon pass on imaginary expenses to their clients. The biggest polluters are profiting.
Meanwhile, the amount of CO2 emitted by plants and factories participating in the system rose 0.4 percent in 2006 and an additional 0.7 percent in 2007.I'll add...since the article failed mention it...that global temperatures are in decline (and have been for almost a decade). What's that tell you?
Wait for it...the EU will soon be touting the fact that their Draconian attempt to lower CO2 emissions really isn't detrimental to businesses. They'd be right, of course. It's an opportunity to go hog wild on emissions, secure free permits to do so, wave a magic wand and pass imaginary costs onto to the consumer.
THESE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS!!! And, Obama thinks we should give it a try.
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