by Patrick Appel
DiA nixes the temperature tax:
[T]he contentious issue at Copenhagen isn't whether or not CO2 emissions are causing global warming. The contentious issue at Copenhagen is how to apportion the burdens of reduced emissions between developed and developing nations. In all of the discussions over global warming, there's one thing nobody seems to talk about, a gigantic...well, not an elephant in the room exactlymore like a huge tame tiger that people don't notice because it doesn't make much noise. And that tiger is this: There are virtually no climate-change sceptics in China.
This is all the more remarkable when one reflects on how advantageous it would be for China to cast doubt on the science of global warming, if it were really interested in forestalling restrictions on its carbon emissions. But in any case, the temperature tax would be useless in achieving global consensus on carbon-emissions reductions, because the existence of global warming is not the subject under international dispute. The subject under international dispute is who pays for the reductions.