That’s the title of a new piece by Charles Kenny in Foreign Policy, and it’s worth every pixel.
From the subtitle:
The world is building a low-carbon global economy—with or without the United States.
To the conclusion:
If the United States doesn’t come into line, the rest of the planet will start finding ways to encourage it. One obvious response would be taxing U.S. exports to take into account their carbon footprint—an approach the United States itself has suggested with regard to its imports if it ever got its act together to tax domestic greenhouse gas emissions. At that point, years behind in investing in energy efficiency and facing significant tariffs on exports, coddled American industries would really understand what it meant to be uncompetitive.
It used to be said that nothing works with Washington, but nothing works without it either.
Sadly for the United States—but thankfully for the planet—the second part may no longer be true.
