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Question: should countries be able to tax imports from countries with more lax environmental laws? Because that would address the argument about cost and stayi

Question: should countries be able to tax imports from countries with more lax environmental laws? Because that would address the argument about cost and staying competitive.

jeroenhd 6y ago
Doing so would raise the price of consumer products significantly, which will go down terribly in most rich, developed nations.
arethuza 6y ago
Then you would be entering into a "trade war" with the United States - which most countries aren't going to be able to do.
- Sharlin 6y ago
  China and the EU can, and should. "Polluter pays" should become the standard policy in international trade in numerous other ways, too.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    Well, as an unhappily former EU citizen I don't think getting into arguments at all is an option for the country I live in. :-(
  - Ekaros 6y ago
    Wouldn't "user pays" be more logical. I think it is quite dishonest to blame China when consumption happens in Europe or USA... All of the pollution should be transported in calculations where consumption happens.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      Then you would be charging people who have no control over the production. The producer nation sets the laws and standards for their facilities.
      - Ekaros 6y ago
        They do have the option to pick up option that has less attached taxes. Or not to buy something.
        giantg2 6y ago
        Who imposes the taxes then? The exporting country (China) is unlikely to do it. The importing county is only likely to do it if the government and people support it. The problem is that even with a tax on the import, polluting in a developing nation would likely be cheaper than not polluting anywhere else. Many items do not have options to buy from various countries (economies of scale usually consolidate factories and leave little room for competitors). Not to mention that drastically reducing consumption (your comment about not buying) will cause most economies to fail since we are consumer based.
        mantas 6y ago
        Make taxes big enough to make pollution too expensive even in cheap countries? Buying less, but more expensive because of less polluting manufacturing methods is the answer. Economy will still keep going.
        giantg2 6y ago
        "Economy will still keep going." How so? If you are adding crushing taxes, then you're likely to see a downturn in production and consumption, which generally results in a weak or shrinking economy.
        mantas 6y ago
        Polluting taxes will promote spending on less polluting ways to manufacture. Or better quality goods that put out same amount of pollution, but you end up buying them not as frequently. Let's take a hipothetical sweater as an example. Now I buy a €20 sweater every 2 years. Let's say pollution tax would be €10. Suddenly it becomes €30 sweater and my €10/year sweater budget becomes €15/year. Instead, I could buy a nice sweater for €40 (+€10 tax) and wear it for 5 years. Now I'm back at original €10/year budget. Economy wise, most of the chain is now just making nicer stuff that takes more resources. Aside from truck driver. Who is now moving twice as much sweaters. But €10 tax ideally would go to environment-improving projects and some drivers will make a living in those new sectors.
    - mschild 6y ago
      To a certain extend, absolutely. Much of the richer EU states cause and have caused quite a bit of pollution and without a serious shift in consumption, I don't believe we can achieve our goals. However, industry is without a doubt a massive resource user. Modern methods in manufacturing can save significant amounts of energy, water, and more. As China is the main producer in many instances, a change also needs to happen there to go from heavy polluting to less polluting methods.
    - mantas 6y ago
      At the end of the day, it's always "user pays".
    - DFHippie 6y ago
      When China bids to manufacture something for the world market, a variety of things go into the price they can bid: labor, shipping, materials, and pollution, chiefly (there is also research, facilities maintenance, etc). The main factors which give them an advantage are labor and pollution. Their labor advantage is internal but their pollution advantage -- the portion dumped into water or air -- they get by extracting value from a shared account. In countries with stricter pollution laws companies can't rob their neighbors to win a bid. That being said, tariffs and other mechanisms meant to force the pollution cost back onto producers really end up being paid largely by consumers anyway. You can't tax citizens of another country. So the tariff taxes citizens of your own country. The cost gets back to the producer country indirectly in that they sell less stuff, but every time the tax is paid it is paid inside the country imposing the tariff by citizens of that country. So it works more or less according to your suggested mechanism.
    - Sharlin 6y ago
      The end result should be largely the same regardless of whether the externality compensation takes the form of an import tariff or user-facing retail tax. Either way customer prices rise and manufacturer/importer/seller margins drop. Tariffs are a blunt tool, but so are most consumer-end taxes as well. But coming up with the sort of Pigovian precision instrument, that attempts to fairly reflect the actual lifecycle externalities of a good or a service, is probably going to be almost impossible for several reasons.
    - nraynaud 6y ago
      it's the same thing, the tax increases the price for the buyer.
  - justin66 6y ago
    Imposing tariffs based on pollution is already GATT-legal. AFAIK it's something countries avoid for all the other reasons why countries avoid tariffs.
  - hackerNoose 6y ago
    China is the biggest polluter and they plan to increase their co2 emissions to at least 2030 so I don't think you'll find an ally there.
    - Gwypaas 6y ago
      China already leveled off in 2011. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=USA~IND~CHN~NGA~ETH https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=USA~IND...
    - La1n 6y ago
      Big polluter because it's a giant country. Per capita it's quite low, and there is no reason a big country should be punished why a smaller country that does significantly worse shouldn't. According to that logic if they would split into lots of smaller countries it suddenly isn't an issue anymore.
- giantg2 6y ago
  China may be on the accord, but they still have abysmal pollution right now. So currently, it would be a trade war with China too. This brings up something that I don't understand. How can there be candidates that say they support the environment, support worker rights, and support free trade with places such as China? Laborers are treated like crap and pollution is rampant in China. Promoting free trade seems to oppose the other two positions since there's more pollution in the developing nations that we outsource out manufacturing to and that labor in our country can't compete with the lower wages of those developing countries, partly due to lower living standard but also due to fewer worker protections and even safety equipment.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Free trade raises the standard for everyone. Today China has those issues, but free trade is raising their living standard. As standards of living raise people find pollution is negatively affecting them and so they solve the problem locally. Of course the downside free trade allows production to move to places where there are no controls because non-local pollution both less affects any individual, and because international politics come into play trying to solve it, and those who have a bad standard of living see this as the rich trying to keep them down by not letting them compete. The last might sound negative about free trade ever solving pollution, but it actually isn't. China and India are both reaching the tipping point where enough people are rich enough to care about pollution that they are doing something about it. Half the world population is already rich enough to care, and that half also wants more stuff so there isn't enough poor places left for this cycle of moving production to repeat for many more cycles. Also, every time production moves they bring the latest technology - China never had the cities full of coal smoke stacks spewing black smoke into the air like the US and Europe had 120 years ago. (they are big into coal, but their coal has always been cleaner just because some cleaner coal technology is also cheaper in the long run)
    - giantg2 6y ago
      You are right that it basically just moves the pollution to the next developing country. You are incorrect about your coal comment. You can see China spewing yellow smoke (it's an even dirtier type of coal than the two we have here). The cleaner tech only gets adopted if it's financially cheaper or has some other incentive like the government enforcing standard (which relies on the education/opinion of the people).
- panpanna 6y ago
  The point was, US can do this too.
Seasonwreckage 6y ago
Yes, addressing one nation and failing to address countries without environmental laws despite being part of the Accord is failure people fear talking about.
koheripbal 6y ago
You cannot do that on a nation by nation basis as you will just push the pollution to other unregulated nations - although if done globally, this might work. Originally the thought was to do this on a product by product basis, but unwinding supply chains is effectively impossible. Actually, it's still pretty tough because some countries buy and rebrand products to slip around tariffs even now.
sp332 6y ago
Since the Paris Agreement was non-binding, it's not really relevant. Anyway, would you accept a country that had states representing over 50% of the population in the Agreement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance
hokkos 6y ago
The EU is stating public consultations on energy taxation and a carbon border adjustment mechanism : https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/news/commission-launches-public-consultations-energy-taxation-and-carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/news/commission-launch...
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  According to the timelines linked there, the public consultations on this just closed few weeks ago. Which is unfortunate for me, because I wasn't aware that there are such consultations until your comment :(.
zshrdlu 6y ago
Does this include the past? Should we "tax" the US and Europe since they've been burning coal and diesel faster than everyone else for more than a century? Should we also favor countries like Kenya, who have burned zero coal historically and are currently some of the greenest countries in the world?

Question: should countries be able to tax imports from countries with more lax environmental laws? Because that would address the argument about cost and staying competitive.

jeroenhd 6y ago

Doing so would raise the price of consumer products significantly, which will go down terribly in most rich, developed nations.

arethuza 6y ago

Then you would be entering into a "trade war" with the United States - which most countries aren't going to be able to do.

Sharlin 6y ago
China and the EU can, and should. "Polluter pays" should become the standard policy in international trade in numerous other ways, too.
- arethuza 6y ago
  Well, as an unhappily former EU citizen I don't think getting into arguments at all is an option for the country I live in. :-(
- Ekaros 6y ago
  Wouldn't "user pays" be more logical. I think it is quite dishonest to blame China when consumption happens in Europe or USA... All of the pollution should be transported in calculations where consumption happens.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Then you would be charging people who have no control over the production. The producer nation sets the laws and standards for their facilities.
    - Ekaros 6y ago
      They do have the option to pick up option that has less attached taxes. Or not to buy something.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        Who imposes the taxes then? The exporting country (China) is unlikely to do it. The importing county is only likely to do it if the government and people support it. The problem is that even with a tax on the import, polluting in a developing nation would likely be cheaper than not polluting anywhere else. Many items do not have options to buy from various countries (economies of scale usually consolidate factories and leave little room for competitors). Not to mention that drastically reducing consumption (your comment about not buying) will cause most economies to fail since we are consumer based.
        mantas 6y ago
        Make taxes big enough to make pollution too expensive even in cheap countries? Buying less, but more expensive because of less polluting manufacturing methods is the answer. Economy will still keep going.
        giantg2 6y ago
        "Economy will still keep going." How so? If you are adding crushing taxes, then you're likely to see a downturn in production and consumption, which generally results in a weak or shrinking economy.
        mantas 6y ago
        Polluting taxes will promote spending on less polluting ways to manufacture. Or better quality goods that put out same amount of pollution, but you end up buying them not as frequently. Let's take a hipothetical sweater as an example. Now I buy a €20 sweater every 2 years. Let's say pollution tax would be €10. Suddenly it becomes €30 sweater and my €10/year sweater budget becomes €15/year. Instead, I could buy a nice sweater for €40 (+€10 tax) and wear it for 5 years. Now I'm back at original €10/year budget. Economy wise, most of the chain is now just making nicer stuff that takes more resources. Aside from truck driver. Who is now moving twice as much sweaters. But €10 tax ideally would go to environment-improving projects and some drivers will make a living in those new sectors.
  - mschild 6y ago
    To a certain extend, absolutely. Much of the richer EU states cause and have caused quite a bit of pollution and without a serious shift in consumption, I don't believe we can achieve our goals. However, industry is without a doubt a massive resource user. Modern methods in manufacturing can save significant amounts of energy, water, and more. As China is the main producer in many instances, a change also needs to happen there to go from heavy polluting to less polluting methods.
  - mantas 6y ago
    At the end of the day, it's always "user pays".
  - DFHippie 6y ago
    When China bids to manufacture something for the world market, a variety of things go into the price they can bid: labor, shipping, materials, and pollution, chiefly (there is also research, facilities maintenance, etc). The main factors which give them an advantage are labor and pollution. Their labor advantage is internal but their pollution advantage -- the portion dumped into water or air -- they get by extracting value from a shared account. In countries with stricter pollution laws companies can't rob their neighbors to win a bid. That being said, tariffs and other mechanisms meant to force the pollution cost back onto producers really end up being paid largely by consumers anyway. You can't tax citizens of another country. So the tariff taxes citizens of your own country. The cost gets back to the producer country indirectly in that they sell less stuff, but every time the tax is paid it is paid inside the country imposing the tariff by citizens of that country. So it works more or less according to your suggested mechanism.
  - Sharlin 6y ago
    The end result should be largely the same regardless of whether the externality compensation takes the form of an import tariff or user-facing retail tax. Either way customer prices rise and manufacturer/importer/seller margins drop. Tariffs are a blunt tool, but so are most consumer-end taxes as well. But coming up with the sort of Pigovian precision instrument, that attempts to fairly reflect the actual lifecycle externalities of a good or a service, is probably going to be almost impossible for several reasons.
  - nraynaud 6y ago
    it's the same thing, the tax increases the price for the buyer.
- justin66 6y ago
  Imposing tariffs based on pollution is already GATT-legal. AFAIK it's something countries avoid for all the other reasons why countries avoid tariffs.
- hackerNoose 6y ago
  China is the biggest polluter and they plan to increase their co2 emissions to at least 2030 so I don't think you'll find an ally there.
  - Gwypaas 6y ago
    China already leveled off in 2011. https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=USA~IND~CHN~NGA~ETH https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china?country=USA~IND...
  - La1n 6y ago
    Big polluter because it's a giant country. Per capita it's quite low, and there is no reason a big country should be punished why a smaller country that does significantly worse shouldn't. According to that logic if they would split into lots of smaller countries it suddenly isn't an issue anymore.
giantg2 6y ago
China may be on the accord, but they still have abysmal pollution right now. So currently, it would be a trade war with China too. This brings up something that I don't understand. How can there be candidates that say they support the environment, support worker rights, and support free trade with places such as China? Laborers are treated like crap and pollution is rampant in China. Promoting free trade seems to oppose the other two positions since there's more pollution in the developing nations that we outsource out manufacturing to and that labor in our country can't compete with the lower wages of those developing countries, partly due to lower living standard but also due to fewer worker protections and even safety equipment.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Free trade raises the standard for everyone. Today China has those issues, but free trade is raising their living standard. As standards of living raise people find pollution is negatively affecting them and so they solve the problem locally. Of course the downside free trade allows production to move to places where there are no controls because non-local pollution both less affects any individual, and because international politics come into play trying to solve it, and those who have a bad standard of living see this as the rich trying to keep them down by not letting them compete. The last might sound negative about free trade ever solving pollution, but it actually isn't. China and India are both reaching the tipping point where enough people are rich enough to care about pollution that they are doing something about it. Half the world population is already rich enough to care, and that half also wants more stuff so there isn't enough poor places left for this cycle of moving production to repeat for many more cycles. Also, every time production moves they bring the latest technology - China never had the cities full of coal smoke stacks spewing black smoke into the air like the US and Europe had 120 years ago. (they are big into coal, but their coal has always been cleaner just because some cleaner coal technology is also cheaper in the long run)
  - giantg2 6y ago
    You are right that it basically just moves the pollution to the next developing country. You are incorrect about your coal comment. You can see China spewing yellow smoke (it's an even dirtier type of coal than the two we have here). The cleaner tech only gets adopted if it's financially cheaper or has some other incentive like the government enforcing standard (which relies on the education/opinion of the people).
panpanna 6y ago
The point was, US can do this too.

Seasonwreckage 6y ago

Yes, addressing one nation and failing to address countries without environmental laws despite being part of the Accord is failure people fear talking about.

koheripbal 6y ago

You cannot do that on a nation by nation basis as you will just push the pollution to other unregulated nations - although if done globally, this might work. Originally the thought was to do this on a product by product basis, but unwinding supply chains is effectively impossible. Actually, it's still pretty tough because some countries buy and rebrand products to slip around tariffs even now.

sp332 6y ago

Since the Paris Agreement was non-binding, it's not really relevant. Anyway, would you accept a country that had states representing over 50% of the population in the Agreement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Climate_Alliance

hokkos 6y ago

The EU is stating public consultations on energy taxation and a carbon border adjustment mechanism : https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/news/commission-launches-public-consultations-energy-taxation-and-carbon-border-adjustment-mechanism_en https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/news/commission-launch...

TeMPOraL 6y ago
According to the timelines linked there, the public consultations on this just closed few weeks ago. Which is unfortunate for me, because I wasn't aware that there are such consultations until your comment :(.

zshrdlu 6y ago

Does this include the past? Should we "tax" the US and Europe since they've been burning coal and diesel faster than everyone else for more than a century? Should we also favor countries like Kenya, who have burned zero coal historically and are currently some of the greenest countries in the world?