This week on Facing the Future, a welcome respite from talk of the debt ceiling crisis to focus on an interesting legislative concept getting considerable bipartisan attention in Congress called Border Carbon Adjustments.
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Greg Bertelsen of the Climate Leadership Council says border carbon adjustments should actually help the competitiveness of American manufacturers who already produce much less carbon emissions than their counterparts in China and India.
“The advantage of a fee at the border is that we are leveraging the very powerful force that is the U.S. consumer – our consumption culture – and sending a price signal, a market signal to all those manufacturers that export goods to the United States to reduce their emissions,” said Bertelsen. “The other advantage of this type of a policy is that it rewards those actors in the global economy that are operating the cleanest; that are leading in reducing their emissions. And it just so happens that among the most efficient, cleanest companies in the world are those that operate here in the United States. We’ve done analysis which shows that U.S. manufacturers on average are about 44% more carbon efficient than the global average. Meaning, we can make the same goods while emitting about 44% less carbon. So if we get those market incentives right, We’ll reward U.S. manufacturers, boost the U.S. economy, and encourage everyone else in the world to compete to lower their emissions.”
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