Thursday, April 26, 2012

Skinny people dieting to reduce human biomass

So concludes David Appell about Mexico's new climate change law (my paraphrase).  Kinda hard to find detailed info about the law - David has useful stuff, a little more at Nature, and then way too much to sort through at the official legal gazette in Spanish.

The 50% below 2000 levels by 2050 will attract attention, but short term is what counts most to me.  They want 30% below business as usual by 2020, which sounds impressive but vulnerable to weird accounting.

They set overall limits and allow emission trading, so this is cap-n-trade for those who don't like that kind of thing.  I think it can be done well or done poorly.  Hopefully the American and European experiments will help Mexico figure out a good system.

Mexico's drought may have spurred political support for the law.  Too bad we've seen less action here in the States, although climate weirding has seemed to pick up some popular notice.

Progress, a bit at a time.

UPDATE:  what I really wanted to find out is if the law has a counterpart to what's been in American proposals - a tariff on imports from foreign nations that don't control carbon emissions.  That would be interesting, and entirely appropriate.  I skimmed the long Spanish web page but ran out of steam before I could find out.

9 comments:

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

This seems less a matter of sinverguenza than thinverguenza.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.

It is a hard fact that consuming more will in fact reduce carbon emissions. By eating animals such as the koala, toucan and zebra, we can reduce emissions by preventing those animals from consuming more than they otherwise would if we did not eat them. h/t Maddox.

Anonymous said...

Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.

On a gruesome side note, here is a horrible video of Assad's forces burying a man alive.

http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2012/04/gruesome-video-assads-forces-bury-man.html

a_ray_in_dilbert_space said...

Jaybird, you are a reprehensible little turd.

David B. Benson said...

Maybe the fad will spread to fat people?

jon said...

Hi, Eli.

Regarding your question, I think it doesn't say so. I haven't read it all, but I have searched words such as "gravamen" and it doesn't appear or "tasa" (just once but in a different context). "Importación" or "importaciones" are absent and so are "transfronterizo" or "comercio internacional". So, I would say (without having read it all) that the answer to your question is "no, it doesn't say so"

El conejo

David B. Benson said...

Gracias, El conejo.

Brian said...

El Conejo - thanks. I'm getting the impression that much is still undefined, so we may see it come back.

For example, my impression is that Mexican corn growers get very excited about perceived unfair competition from the US, so I think we'll be hearing from them.

dhogaza said...

"For example, my impression is that Mexican corn growers get very excited about perceived unfair competition from the US, so I think we'll be hearing from them."

Why should it be your impression? Fact it, industrial-scale ag is moving south, and it's CA ag expansion behind it.