Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Breaking: Turns out that the people of Europe may *not* all get rich by selling each other wind turbines

Europe Could Reconsider Climate [Scam] Approach - WSJ.com
BRUSSELS—In what could herald a significant shift in policy for a region that has been in the forefront of advocating action to combat climate change, the European Union is for the first time questioning whether it should press ahead with plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions if other countries don't follow.

In a document seen by Dow Jones Newswires, the European Commission's energy department says the EU should consider whether the region should seek to switch its domestic energy base away from carbon emitting sources in the absence of a global climate change deal.
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"It has to be seen clearly that there are risks associated to unilateral EU action," the commission says in its draft. "There is a trade-off between climate change policies and competitiveness. Europe cannot act alone in an effort to achieve global decarbonisation," the paper reads.

The commission is particularly worried that EU industry would lose competitiveness in the battle for global markets against companies from other parts of the world as its costs would be higher. EU companies would likely pay higher electricity prices because clean power production would be more expensive, while some would also have to pay for their own CO2 emissions, or face big investments to reduce them.

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