this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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He's been talking about it for months, but looks like he's going to actually introduce it. An embedded-emissions tariff like this was proposed during early draft outlines of Build Back Better, but didn't survive negotiation.

I'll note that his idea of 'more methane gas instead of coal' is something which might have been a reasonable intermediate step 30 years ago. It's not now, in a world where wind and solar are the cheap option.

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[–] pizzaiolo@slrpnk.net 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's funny how Republicans must always find the racist/xenophobic angle of any issue and run with it.

In this case it might actually be OK, just because we're in a climate emergency.

I do wonder what Americans would say if China slapped a similar tariff to their products, though. It might be the closest we can get to a carbon tax, lol.

[–] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 5 points 1 year ago

We know from our experiences with Trump’s idiocy that China definitely WOULD retaliate with tariffs of their own, to the detriment of everyone except the demagogues getting votes out of it but ESPECIALLY the working class of both countries.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It would effectively be a carbon tax, but not for US companies, right? That's better than no carbon tax in my book.

[–] pizzaiolo@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 year ago

Exactly. Let's hope other countries get mad and create their own tariffs.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 year ago

The US is at 0.21t/$1000 in GDP. Globally it is 0.26t/$1000 of GDP. China is about as bad as it gets without being aa fossil fuel exporter. However such a law would help most African and Latin American countries quite a bit, as they often are relativly clean already. In Latin americas case even with a decent quality of life. I doubt the US does that and natural gas is not making that any better.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seems like a good, bipartisan policy proposal. So I’m sure republicans will invent some reason that it’s bad.

[–] jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They will at least try to carve out exceptions for pollution caused by order of the US multinationals and make the proposal useless in the process.

Something something woke policy there is no pollution something something hunter Biden