En muchas partes del mundo los sectores productivos se quejan de cómo los altos precios de electricidad afectan la competitividad. Resulta que en otros lugares en que se emplean fuentes para producir electricidad que exportan altas cantidades de gases invernadero, dándole ventajas comparativas a los sectores productivos de esos países.
Esas ventajas comparativas se pueden convertir ahora en ventajas desleales de comercio internacional si se negocian e implantan disciplinas en la OMC para imponer aranceles a la exportación de gases invernadero por parte de las empresas al medioambiente global. Las condiciones para esas disciplinas están más que dadas en la actualidad.
La unión de los países que dependen fuertemente de importaciones de petróleo, en vez de invertir en desarrollo de centrales a carbón, lo que deben hacer es constituir un grupo de presión en la OMC para facilitar el desarrollo de energías limpias sin tener que subsidiarlas. El mecanismo sería la negociación de esos aranceles, los cuales generarían grandes ingresos de exportación a las empresas que menos contaminen.
Esta idea en bruto necesariamente debe estar ligada a exportaciones cada vez menores a la atmósfera de los gases invernadero.
Al respecto, acabo de colocar una nota debajo del artículo Still Another Look at Global Warming, por Ferdinand E. Banks, que dice:
The WTO could be entrusted as the "single agency” with "the power to enact globally binding environmental legislation." Clearly the WTO disciplines should be developed with a corresponding "miracle" attitude in place.
That is in line with what I suggested earlier, that instead of a tax or emissions trading, tariff schedules on exports of GHG should be in place. Since this is no a tax, the tariffs schedules would have a range that would be negative, meaning that company export below the threshold level would generate a credit for the company. This is just an idea for discussion to suppress GHG, by changing the tariffs schedules and reducing the corresponding thresholds as time goes on.
The case for WTO disciplines has already been studied earlier, I recall around the year 2000 in the energy and environment task forces of the WTO. In fact, there is an important unfair competition issue involved, making GHG suppression a trade issue amenable to binding agreements.
Just like Demand Integration, GHG Suppression, is just another externality that can be handled by 2GRs for the electricity industry. California is once again in the process of shaking-up the power industry, as can be seen in the EWPC article High Leverage Shake-Up in California. Since California has probably invested more than any other place in the world in the suppression of GHG gases, their companies could well become competitive by the process. The coalition of California businesses promoting “direct access” should look closely into this idea.
It is very clear that in the process, transportation should undergo GHG Suppression and thus shift to electricity. That is already happening with cities mass transportation initiatives.
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