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> If most of Europe and China got together and signed an agreement to all put sanctions on any country that didn't meet a per-capita carbon emissions target, th

• AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  > Which would be the beginning of world government. No it wouldn't, because it isn't a government, it's a relationship between fully independent states. If a federal judge orders an Alabama school superintendent to do something as a matter of federal law, that superintendent is either going to do that thing or be arrested by the feds, and nobody is going to stop them. That's what a government looks like. If the EU tells the US to cut carbon emissions or face sanctions and Donald Trump tells them to piss off, nobody is going to arrest Donald Trump and anybody who tries to is going to be met with force. Europe can then impose the sanctions, and the US can either give in or suffer the ramifications as a country, but at no point is anyone who refuses to comply going to be held personally responsible by an external governing body. Moreover, each government's tools against the others are roughly symmetrical. If the EU wants to put sanctions on the US they can, but the US can just respond in kind. That hurts both of them and they both know it, so (absent corruption) they won't do it unless it's something sufficiently important. Which means you don't get the insane policies like we have in the US where the feds start micromanaging everything just because they can get away with it.