*taps foot*

First, I want to give a short analysis of the topic.

A follow-on treaty is not simply a repetition of a prior treaty.  Rather, it attempts to continue the general goals of the original treaty as closely as possible, while recognizing and correcting problems which existed in the prior treaty.  Empirically, the START follow-on treaty restructured the verification regime of nuclear weapons.

In addition, this interpretation of "follow-on treaty" is most realistic because treaties are written with expiration dates for the sake of testing.  Both the START and Kyoto treaties were constructed as initial measures toward their goals, with the recognition not that their goals would be abandoned upon expiration, but that the original treaty could be examined and perfected to achieve the goals of the prior treaty.

That means I have the right to recognize core flaws in the original Kyoto Protocol and attempt to correct them in an advocated follow-on treaty, as long as I do not modify the fundamental goal established in the Kyoto Protocol.

Thus, my advocacy:
A follow-on treaty to the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified, creating a series of universally applied benchmarks on emission caps.  In addition, the treaty should state that trade barriers against imports which violate the agreed upon benchmarks are considered a proper environmental justification for establishing trade barriers in accordance with World Trade Organization standards, as long as greenhouse gas emission standards are applied universally.

The advocacy attempts to correct two flaws of the original Kyoto protocol: lack of enforceability and lack of universal emission cap standards.

Let me begin by explaining how it works.

The World Trade Organization is the organization tasked with enforcing the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, the standard agreement governing the vast majority of interntional trade barriers throughout the world.  The World Trade Organization acts as a court to hear legal charges that a nation is establishing protectionist measures illegal under GATT, such as establishing regulations on foreign goods which do not apply to domestic goods.

If a nation establishes a regulation which another nation considers a violation of the GATT, they can file a claim before the WTO.  The WTO would act as a court to hear the case, and render a ruling just like a domestic court.  Generally, the countries in question settle out of court somehow.  If, however, such a settlement cannot be reached, the WTO can issue an order for a nation to pay damages.  Obviously, the WTO can't collect a fine from the US directly.  So the WTO will allow the nation which incurred damages to impose a tariff on goods imported from the nation at fault in order to collect an amount equal to damages.

The World Trade Organization does allow nations to establish environmental regulations, as long as those regulations are equally applied, i.e., the US may establish a fuel standard regulation on imports as long as the fuel standard is the same among all imports, and is the same as the domestic fuel standard.  However, the question has not been answered regarding what constitutes an environmental standard.  There are definitely specific cases, but it is not known whether global warming is considered an environmental issue by World Trade Organization standards.

Under my advocacy, if a nation violated the new Kyoto Protocol, the World Trade Organization would be empowered to determine whether a violation has occurred, and provide an order allowing a damaged nation to impose tariffs to offset losses.  Specifically, damages could be estimated as the difference between the cost of applying Kyoto standards to a good's production and the cost of the good in violation of Kyoto, plus a penalty to consider possible economic effects of environmental damage.  In this way, the agent which violated the Kyoto Protocol would lose the marginal benefit of violation.

I claim two advantages.

First is global warming (duh)

We know that carbon dioxide results in increases in temperatures.  At an extreme example, the CO2-heavy atmosphere of Venus is higher temperature than Mercury, despite being further from the sun than Mercury.  Additionally, the scientific community generally agrees that humanity is contributing to increasing global temperatures (Source: http://dels.nas.edu/resources/static-assets/materials-based-on-reports/booklets/climate_change_2008_final.pdf).

Even if current emissions are not enough to influence global warming, expanding economic growth in India and China will increase total consumer demand for industrial-scale goods, multiplying the total amount of carbon emissions even more than today.

Left unchecked, global warming presents the possibility for multiple scenarios of global human extinction.  Formerly arable land will become inhospitable relatively quickly due to shifting patterns of climate and the seasons, forcing perpetual adjustments in the food production necessary to sustain humanity.  With nations such as the United States and Europe seeing destabilized food production, both would be forced to take imperialist measures, even against one another, to secure food supplies, where the price of failure is starvation.  In such a world, the risk of not winning the war would be as great as the risk of losing a war, to the point where even nuclear deterrence would be insufficient to prevent armageddon.

Second, species loss would become a critical threat.  Global ecosystems are relatively fragile, requiring the coordination of multiple species to sustain the biological functions which keep the ecosystem functioning.  Remove one or two species and the ecosystem will be hurt.  However, remove a keystone species which provides a function that cannot be duplicated by other species, and the ecosystem collapses.  Global warming creates a fundamental shift in every ecosystem globally.  In the face of such a shift, and with biological evolution only existing on a scale of millions of years, ecosystems will not have the opportunity to check against the instability of global warming.

Second is free trade

Domestic global warming standards fundamentally fail because they result in an increased marginal cost of production only in domestic markets.  As a producer, with the additional marginal cost of abiding by an environmental standard, a producer has an incentive to move to unregulated nations.

This has two implications.  First, it means no net reduction in greenhouse gases would be reached from domestic regulations because, unlike most other types of pollution, greenhouse gases are not local events... an increase in greenhouse gases in one region of the world creates a net increase in greenhouse gas emissions, and thus climate change, globally.

Second, however, it encourages further unfettered emissions.  In the face of work outsourcing due to asymmetrical regulations, domestic politics in any region would experience the shift recognizing that environmental regulations have real regional economic costs.  As a result, the incentive to support emissions regulations will diminish, and established policies will inevitably fail.

Unfettered emission undermines the general credibility of free trade.  For individuals concerned primarily with enironmental issues, a race to the bottom trade network establish a precedent of free trade being the enemy of environmental regulation.  As a result, over time, environmentalists will be forced to fight free trade in order to pass their agenda.

Opposition to free trade devastates the global economy.  Beginning with David Ricardo, economists have generally agreed with the principle that the net consumer and prodcer surplus will always be greater under a free trade world than a protectionist world.  First, it ensures that people are more able to specialize, maximizing production.  Second, it allows businesses to take advantage of economies of scale, further increasing total output of goods.  As a result of both conditions, the competitive markets created allow businesses to reduce prices in order to gain market share, increasing total consumer surplus.

I'm empirically correct on this argument.  The past 50 years have been defined by the two correlating patterns of continually reduced international trade barriers and economic growth nearly unprecedented in human history.  Consequently, the greatest period of global economic decline, the Great Depression, was marked with a sharp increase in protectionism with the Glass-Steagal Act in the US, a large general increase in tariffs following the initial stock market crash, and the resulting retaliatory tariffs by foreing nations, reducing overall productivity and perpetuating the Great Depression.  Thus, a reduction in international trade will be detrimental to the global economy.

*bites tongue*

I so wanna crush Zarf with this!

*bites tongue again*

But it is my favorite of all the topics I expect to have happen *runs home crying*

Lol... definitely not my favorite topic

short and erratic just like me .

and ofcourse not my favorit topic .
and prolly late because i failed to look at politics before today . different things going on in my life aswell.

but luckily i haven't played my trump card yet

*rips both sides apart and walks away whistling*

Just want to check up on this, chaos.  Still around?  (We can't let You_Fool and Flint beat us to finishing the round first, now can we?)

your rules suck

plenty of normal and usual "crimes" will put a guy offline for a month

You just called the debate. Ie, it's over. The Yell just responded. Are you high?

Edit: I'll take that as a "Yes."

> V.Kemp wrote:

> The solution is obviously to lie about your emissions to cut costs, undersell your international competition, and avoid sanctions.

Then I get to drag your ass to the WTO when you're inevitably found out and place additional tariffs on all your goods, not just polluting products, in order to recover damages I incurred.  When you're underselling international competition, the losing businesses would have a vested interest in attempting to gain evidence against you, because gaining evidence means I could put sanctions on you, and my company would have a better fighting chance.

"Don't get caught" is much more difficult when every business you're competing against has a vested interest in finding you out and successfully getting a civil case against you. 

> V.Kemp wrote:

> Just like the competition of companies selling goods from China always find out if there's lead in their infant/children's products!

Oh, wait: That frequently doesn't happen. We're talking about nations where governments frequently use their power to assist businesses (sometimes government businesses) in whatever profits them, making information and access less available to competitors.

There's a difference.  Companies selling goods from China have a vested interest in not identifying lead in products.  Yes, some vested interest would exist for nations to lie and cover up their pollution.  However, as we've seen in China, Iraq, North Korea, and every other unaccountable nation in the world, defectors with interests in that area often flee to other countries and reveal that information, providing evidence to the countrary that would at least bring nations to call for an inspection regime against individuals who are lying.

> Major polluters only signed the Kyoto treaty because it exempted them from meaningful cuts. There's absolutely no chance they'd sign on to [enforceable] legislation that actually caused them to dramatically increase costs of production: Their people are not as rich as you, and cost of living loss is very real to them. Ignorant, pampered brats of this generation (in well-off Western countries) are quick to say they would take a cut of a few thousand dollars/euros per year if it saves the planet (in the name of blatantly political "science").

But nobody in the less developed world is willing to take a $10 increase in what they pay for products because a bunch of politically-motivated scientists 5000 miles away say it's for the planet. Let's not have that debate--Maybe you're at least 1% correct--But propaganda like Al Gore's "documentary" only detracts from any real case you may have. People without the luxuries you have aren't going to set themselves back because someone tells them it's for the good of the planet.

"Nobody would pass this idea" is never a reason to reject an idea, simply because it doesn't address the issue of whether the idea is good or bad.

> You want to save the planet. That's great. But the only people signing onto these sorts of measures are corrupt bureaucrats. They're not saving the planet, and they're not going to.

I want to remind you that I was pre-assigned my role here.  I only really constructed this policy stance in order to defend a position... in short, this is a game, not an actual advocacy.