European Union Tells US Airlines to Go Green or Get Lost
Saturday March 15, 2008
The European Union has given US airlines a green ultimatum: Either start buying carbon credits to offset carbon dioxide emissions or face a possible ban on flights from the United States to Europe.
With negotiations for a new "open skies" agreement between the two governments set to begin in May, the EU is getting tough about airline greenhouse gas emissions and making sure EU airlines that already pay for carbon offsets remain competitive with their less enlightened rivals.
Learn more about the environmental and economic issues behind the threatened suspension of US airline flights to Europe.
Comments
Given that Alitalia is broke and looking for a buyer to bail them out, I have to wonder how much of this is altruistic environmentalism and how much is a cut-throat business practice. Europe’s economy is basically shot. I can’t see them doing anything that will hurt tourism, their major industry.
I think this is Outrageous! Tickets to Europe for that low. When can I purchase a pair of these and how long do you think this ban will provide rates like this?
Hey Emilio, say what?????????
Guido is completely misinformed about Europe’s economy. For example, in 2008 Germany had more than a $250 billion export surplus, whereas the U.S. had close to a nine hundred billion deficit. And this for a nation with a quarter of our population in an area the size of Montana. We should be so lucky to have that kind of a “lousy” economy.
Guido could also look around him and see Germans making Google’s book scanners, Virginia’s cigarette machines, Siemens is rapidly taking over our sophisticated hospital scanners, Germans and Dutch own our supermarkets, the Belgians bought out our biggest beermaker, Italians saved Chrysler, and little Finland’s Nokia is the world’s leading cellphone manufacturer. We’re even importing something like 35% of our non staple food because we can’t get our act together and produce from our vast physical resources of land and ocean.
It’s time we in the U.S. took off our myopia glasses, stopped fighting each other and blurting out unsupported putdowns of other nations to make our condition seem less serious. We need to open our eyes to achievements of other nations. They once learned from us. Now it’s time to eat humble pie and learn from them.
Germany wishes they had our 9.8% unemployment rate. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4307303.stm
And 10% of their GNP is derived from tourism.
-True, their trade deficit is better than ours, but then so is that of an impoverished nation that makes nothing, but imports nothing. I bet you’re a govt economist who tells us we’re out of the recession based on the “fundamentals”