Mind the Gap

Floating around in my drafts file is a Times business column by Eduardo Porter, discussing the (lack of) progress in talks toward next December's Paris climate change agreement, a problem, of course, with corralling the world's two largest greenhouse gas producers, China, and the United States, into a worthwhile pact. For example,

What if every other advanced nation, as a way to encourage energy efficiency and spur investments in alternatives to fossil fuels, agreed to put a price of $25 per ton on carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere? As a tax, that would add some 22 cents to the price of a gallon of gas, something few American politicians — fearing public anger — are yet ready to consider.

According to calculations by William Nordhaus, an expert on the economics of climate change at Yale, the United States, on net, would gain $8 billion a year by benefiting from everybody else’s efforts to slow down the Earth’s warming without having to exert any effort itself.

But then, what if the other nations had some mechanism for pushing the US into less anti-social behavior?

if the other advanced nations had a stick — a tariff of 4 percent on the imports from countries not in the “climate club” — the cost-benefit calculation for the United States would flip. Not participating in the club would cost Americans $44 billion a year.

This is a great idea in my view, but it also sounds "Draconian", as Porter says; it's an idea for using a trade agreement to interfere with the sovereign ability of the United States to do whatever the hell it wants. What's the progressive position on that, Senator Warren?

My position is I don't really care about the sacred sovereignty of the United States in a context like this. At all. Like the original progressives negotiating a League of Nations in Versailles in 1919 while the conservatives back in Washington conspired to make sure the US would not take part in such a thing, I would like to see the US give up some sovereignty in return for some international progress.

Which brings us to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, sort of. Why would we trust the US government better than a hammered-out body of international regulation? On the basis of what experience?