Following the dubious example set recently by U.S. legislators, French politicians have informally proposed ^[1] slapping punitive tariffs on goods from countries who refuse to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The German State Secretary for the Environment has, quite rightly, called foul:

There are two problems — the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the signal would be that this is a new form of eco-imperialism,” Machnig said.

 ”We are closing our markets for their products, and I don’t think this is a very helpful signal for the international negotiations.”

I have a paper forthcoming on the carbon tariff issue, but in the meantime here’s a recent op-ed ^[2] (written jointly with Pat Michaels) on climate change policy mis-steps.