That's pretty obvious, but the message needs to be hammered in over and over. The bigger issue is that game theory gets in the way - if pollution is taxed here, it will be exported to places where it is not.
The EU is the farthest ahead on this.
See:
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Carbon_Border_Adjustment_...
- https://citizensclimatelobby.org/blog/policy/carbon-border-a...
We've overthrown foreign governments for smaller reasons. It's more a question of political will than anything else.
Hard problems are hard.
Example: The US has banned lots of Chinese stuff. The stuff now sneaks across the border into southeast Asia, or goes to a final assembly plant there and becomes Vietnamese or Cambodian. There are _supposed to_ be supply chain records and audits in many cases, though reality often doesn't match paperwork...
We have done close to nothing to enforce the current tariffs and such, allowing blatant country of origin laundering to go the whole time with next to zero enforcement action. You can bring a ready to prosecute case to regulators and they do utterly nothing.
Adding more to this regime would just be yet more performative nonsense to make some people feel good about themselves. We need far less of that in this world.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ford-motor-company-agrees-pay...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-2...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/us-attorney-lapointe-an...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-1...
Now if you're just arguing the penalties need to be stiffer: sure!
But on a cursory search, I don't believe it's fair at all to say we've done "close to nothing" or there's "next to zero enforcement action" or regulators "do utterly nothing" or it's "performative nonsense".
What evidence do you have to back up your claims? It seems like perhaps you've actually brought a ready-to-prosecute case forward? Curious to learn!
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1197961495 I think is the best quick example of the problem I am talking about here. Outright actual fraud by foreign companies laundering country of origin through intermediary countries. There is next to zero enforcement on this considering how rampant it is. There seems to be very little interest in doing any sort of "hard" prosecution on this problem - likely because it is complex and difficult to investigate appropriately.
I consider it rampant and enforcement a joke since I have spoken to vendors about past and future potentially tariffs and they are completely unconcerned by them. Minor cost of doing business increase to have products shipped through an intermediary company and relabeled. Maybe some quick final assembly if they really are trying to play the game.
I think current enforcement works okayish for folks trying to push the limits. It seems to fall over on outright fraud imposed by bad actors.
We're just seeing the example of tech companies, which for years paraded around as earth saviors with pledges of "carbon neutrality", just to discard any such plans when competition for AI supremacy makes them spend as much energy as they possibly can, as quickly as possible, the environment be damned.
And I'm arguing that the problem is you need over 200 governments to agree on both it and its enforcement, and that the wealth disparity between countries in and of itself will cause game theory issues for these sorts of agreements to break down, even if each government was enlightened socialist.
Capitalism is making it worse, to be sure, but socialism is not a solution here in and of itself.