No blogging today, as I'm in Wellington for a seminar on "ways to compensate people for climate change policy" [PDF] on avoiding economic harm to "highly mobilized indusrial stakeholders". IMHO this is missing the point - the aim is to internalise costs, and if it makes polluters go out of business, then they weren't really economic to begin with - but it might be interesting.
Meanwhile, I have a few hours to kill in the morning, and it occurs to me that while I spend a lot of time blogging about Parliament, I've never really been there. Oh, I've visited once, and sat on the lawn in the sun and had lunch a few times (one of the pleasures of Wellington, along with Midnight Espresso and Unity Books), but I've never sat in the gallery or taken the tour. So tomorrow, I might remedy at least one of those deficiencies. Either that, or find a library and bury myself in books...
I may be completely wrong here, but "highly mobilized industrial stakeholders" suggests that the aim isn't to prevent polluters going out of business, just offshore.
ReplyDeleteI assumed they meant 'mobilized' politically rather than geographically. Which doesn't strike me as much of a case for special treatment.
ReplyDeleteLyndon: I'll be doing a full post on this later, but basically yes. And no, its not a case for special treatment, so much as a way of getting policy in place. It's worth noting that the speaker was American, as were his examples, and the NZ political environment wrt public sympathy for energy companies (and public vs private ownership) is rather different.
ReplyDeleteHey, remember a while back you were cheerleading for the leftist takeover of South America? Looks like that's working out just great ...
ReplyDeleteChávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators
CARACAS, Venezuela, Feb. 16 — Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.
Hopefully Venezuelans will wake up before Chavez manages to create his own personal Zimbabwe in South America ...