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EU unveils sweeping climate change plan:
The European Union has announced a raft of climate change proposals aimed at pushing it towards its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
A dozen draft proposals, which still need to be approved by the bloc's 27 member states and the EU parliament, were announced on Wednesday.
They include plans to tax jet fuel and effectively ban the sale of petrol and diesel powered cars within 20 years.
The proposals, however, could face years of negotiations.
The plans triggered serious infighting at the European Commission, the bloc's administrative arm, as the final tweaks were being made, sources told the AFP news agency.
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EU Unveils Sweeping Climate Change Plan
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"Love your country but never trust its government."
-- from a hand-painted road sign in central Pennsylvania
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @12:36PM (7 children)
Missing data: it will allow EU to place CO2 tariffs on imports into EU, like from China or US, that accounts for the waste they emit that is embedded in these products. This allows the local companies to play on a level playing field while developing a CO2-neutral production process. In the long run, EU will be ahead of the rest of the world.
This is exactly what US should have enacted a decade ago except that they were not interesting in CO2 neutral economy. The bitching that "China pollutes more and will not reduce" was just fake excuses pushed by the elites that want to maintain the status-quo of making money from pollution.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:23PM (6 children)
It is more likely that non EU countries would see that as a stealth tax/tariff, and consequently complain to the WTO and/or impose their own tariffs against EU goods to keep a level playing field in their own markets. Coupled with mutual sanctions and general demonisation.
What we are seeing is a fragmentation of the world into alliances/blocks, with little cross block communication or trade.
To be honest, it reminds me a bit too much of the period in Europe just before WWI kicked off.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 18 2021, @02:49PM (4 children)
Not to be pedantic, but when was the world ever united? It's always been divided - either into small competing/warring countries, or into large competing/warring blocks.
What we are seeing is more of the same. It's nothing new and it's unlikely to change in time to avoid the climate disaster.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday July 18 2021, @03:35PM (3 children)
After WWII was the closest, with the formation of the UN, Nuremberg laws and a pledge to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations. I admit it didn't last long, first splitting into two power blocks with the cold war and some kind of overarching stability due to the fear of MAD. Then from 1990s it has all been unraveling, and once the USA became the sole superpower, up until recently it could do what it wished, and things like territorial integrity and sovereignty went out the window.
However throughout that time there was at least co-operation and a level of mutual respect between the big powers. Globalisation pushed the powers to become interdependent on each other economically, resulting in a joint interest in keeping things stable. However that seems to be going out the window, and the blocks are isolating themselves to break dependence on one another.
It is hard to fight a war against your trade partners, hence why the first step prior to any major conflict is isolationism and self sufficiency, to make sure you can survive solely on the resources you control. That is what the big powers did just prior to WWI, hence my comparison.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday July 18 2021, @04:37PM
During WW2 was the closest: it was Germany and their buddies against everyone else. After WW2, it was the US and their buddies against the USSR and their slaves, and nonaligned countries - aka the original third world.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:09PM
Uh-huh. It's all the U.S. fault, it had absolutely nothing to do with the EU's unelected Jewish Bureaucrats destroying your culture and livelihoods by mass-importing third-world filth and then locking you all down in a sadistic display prompted by a bullshit pandemic. There are massive and daily protests against all this nonsense, but the Jew-run media chooses to ignore it.
Global Jewry and its entrenchment is the problem. You all are just either Jewish or otherwise too chickenshit to admit it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 19 2021, @10:14AM
If by Globalisation you mean China specifically since 1990s, then yes. Otherwise things don't follow. Nothing else really changed. It's not like we are moving clothing factories out of Bangladesh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 18 2021, @06:42PM