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(Article written by Washington’s Blog)

James Hansen – the world’s leading climate scientist fighting against global warming – told Amy Goodman this morning that cap and trade not only won’t reduce emissions, it may actually increase them:

The problem is that the emissions just go someplace else. That’s what happened after Kyoto, and that’s what would happen again, if—as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned someplace. You know, the Europeans thought they actually reduced their emissions after Kyoto, but what happened was the products that had been made in their countries began to be made in other countries, which were burning the cheapest form of fossil fuel, so the total emissions actually increased…

Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are also against cap and trade (and see this and this), as is the head of California’s cap and trade program for the EPA.

Hansen also told Goodman that (notwithstanding Paul Krugman’s assertions) most economists say that cap and trade won’t work:

I’ve talked with many economists, and the majority of them agree that the cap and trade with offsets is not the way to address the problem.“

For the rest of the article goto: Washington’s Blog original post