A paper released today by the United Nations Environment Program and the World Trade Organization acknowledged that cap and trade legislation would be expected to have significantly harmful economic consequences, likely including a serious loss of international competitiveness. In response, governments considering such a policy would likely want to consider a border tax adjustment (BTA) system to mitigate the loss of competitiveness. The report goes on to say that such a BTA system would be permissible under the world trading system. While it’s shocking in and of itself that a …
