The Europeans, having lost their minds, have decided that carbon trading extortion is here.
Foreign airlines are threatened with a flight and landing ban from 2012 in the European Union if they do not participate in emissions trading.
The ban is proposed in an internal document by the EU Commission seen by Handelsblatt. Summarised on nine pages, the guidelines describe how such a ban could be implement. The Commission considers a flight and landing ban as a last resort to make the airlines surrender over its Emissions Trading Scheme.
An EU Directive stipulates that airlines from Europe and third countries are mandated to be included in the trading of emissions rights. On their flights to and from Europe, they may then only emit as much CO2 as the CO2 certificates they hold. 85 percent of the certificates are free of charge while 15 percent of the allowances have to bought via auctions.
“The whole project has not been thought through. The EU cannot impose its law on third countries,” Holger Krahmer, environmental spokesman for the German Liberal Party in the EU Parliament told Handelsblatt.
In fact, international resistance against the EU plan is growing. Several American, Asian and African airlines are suing the EU over its emissions trade project. The US Aviation Association ATA is attempting to have the policy suspended by the European Court of Justice. And the Russian government has also voiced its displeasure in Brussels.
That’s really a shame. Here I was planning on spending all that excess cash in my checking account on a splurge whirlwind trip to all the hotspots of Europe. First I was going to visit all the mosques in London, tour the medical facilities, and check out the firearms clubs. Then I was going to Denmark’s family friendly tourist spots. After that, I thought it might be fun to pay a nice visit to see some French “youths” burning police cars at night. Then I was hoping for some Turkish food in Hamburg.
But since American air lines probably won’t pay the carbon taxes, I guess now I’m stuck with hanging around in L.A. Which, by the way, is more cosmopolitan than all of Europe put together. Of course, that’s partly because Europeans keep moving here, especially Russian mobsters and third generation French Algerians. They seem to buy and sell illegal weapons from each other.
You’d think they could meet to conduct business somewhere closer.
Anyway, go Europe! Enviro-whacko eco-pagan leaders of the world!
