"A strong WTO could have been used to enforce legal tariffs on...

"A strong WTO could have been used to enforce legal tariffs on nations which refuse to meet emissions standards. "

So would the WTO have enforced lower emissions in countries that have been the greatest contributor to emissions increases? Countries such as:

China (7.6 bn tonne increase in emissions since 2000)
India (+1.6 bn t)
Iran (+376 mt)
Saudi Arabia (+361 mt)
Indonesia (+263 mt)
Vietnam (+216 mt)
South Korea (+212 mt)
Turkey (+190 mt)
Kazakhstan (+183 mt)
Russia (+ 149 mt)
Brazil (+136 mt)
South Africa (+132 mt)
Egypt (+125 mt)
Malaysia (+124mt)
Thailand (+ 110 mt)
Iraq (+102 mt)
Mexico (+100 mt)

How would the WTO have achieved that?


"You should be aware that many of these "high emission developing countries" are high emission largely because our corporations make the products we consume there. The very clothes on your back came from a high emission developing country."

So should we cease consuming products and shutter in the industries that make them so that the workers in those industries can de-urbanise and go back to an agrarian state of existence?

Besides, what about the billion Chinese, SE Asians and Indians who are today also consumers of the products made in their countries?


"Good policy could make us energy independent and save us a lot of money. Conservatives are too short sighted to see the opportunities."

Don't disagree with the first sentence. But that will have little bearing on helping to stem the increasing emissions.

As for the part about "Conservatives being too short-sighted to see the opportunities", there I disagree quite strongly. "Conservatives" are generally associated with a strong profit motive. I believe that, if the opportunity to make a buck exists, "Conservatives" will be just as keen as anyone to mobilise their capital to that end.