EDITORIAL: Climate talks, then climate tax

Negotiators rarely find themselves at a loss for words. So it should come as no surprise that United Nations diplomats agreed Sunday to keep chatting. They set for themselves a 2015 deadline for reaching a deal on a new climate treaty. As long as they keep talking and don’t actually do anything, the world is spared the cost of a bargain that could reach into the trillions. Representatives at the 17th annual U.N. global-warming summit in Durban, South Africa, worked overtime figuring out how they could replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, set to expire at the end of 2012. While the original treaty placed carbon-dioxide emissions restrictions on industrial nations, the new “Durban Framework” calls for the inclusion of developing nations as well when it takes effect in 2020. European Union climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard commended representatives from 194 nations for “working to the very last minute to secure that we cash in what has been achieved and what should be achieved here.” The “cash” she referred to is $100 billion in annual taxes developed nations would pay into a “Green Climate Fund,” which then would be redistributed to underdeveloped countries to mitigate the impact of purported global warming. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said recently that the fund needs to collect $76 trillion over 40 years. Good luck selling that plan in today’s teetering economy...more