The average Chinese I talk with could care less about carbon emissions caps; that is, unless they figure it’s yet another Western plot to spoil China’s ascent. The bill before Congress placing tariffs on imports based on their carbon emissions is fundamentally a good idea that needs to be equally applied to imports and domestically produced goods. The bill essentially penalizes imports that were made with “dirty” technologies or that have “dirty” components.It would certainly spur China to actually put its policy where its mouth is in terms of forcing its heavily polluting (and wasteful) industries to meet the stricter carbon requirements the central government continues to tout. After all, if its second largest customer (after the European Union) says it wants to change its buying habits, well … the customer is (nearly) always right.

On the other hand, for the United States government to hand free emissions credits to its own dirty industries does smack of protectionism as well as gives the finger to global efforts at reducing carbonemissions – hardly the sort of trend-setting actions the rest of the world looks to the United States for. Instead of encouraging industries that need to clean their collective acts up, congressional efforts should be encouraging industries that want to clean the Earth up. The consumer backlash consumer advocatespredict is, well, predicatable.Let’s face it, though:, don’t Americans have enough stuff?

Tackling climate change is going to require big changes in habits that in a mere 65 years have become a part of national American mythology that has also become embedded in the national psyches of othercountries: that is, that this earth is ours to do with as we please.

The earth, though, has greater considerations.

Further reading: China Briefing