Environmental Demagoguery: Measuring and Labeling Wine's Carbon Footprint is Needless Undertaking; Will Raise Consumer Costs & Reduces Quality of Life

Bordeaux To Measure Wine’s CO2 Footprint


Environmental Leader


January 29, 2008


http://www.environmentalleader.com/2008/01/29/bordeaux-to-measure-wines-co2-footprint


The Bordeaux Wine Board (CIVB) is launching a project to measure the GHG the region’s industry is producing. The project, called “Bilan Carbone” in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency, and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.


The aim of the study is to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery. It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management. According to Roland Feredj, CIVB director, the study will cost about $70,000.Last November, the first-ever attempt at a carbon neutral vineyard in France began in Bordeaux’s Medoc region.

[MORE FRENCH PROTECTIONISM]


Another Bordeaux winemaking family, the Despagne Family, has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 25 acres of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, but they said studying carbon emissions was a challenge. The Despagnes are using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to measure their GHG and compare them with global standards.

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http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnFLyvTdnNFpzMEUeeN5bbRa0teg

Associated France Presse


Bordeaux to measure wine's CO2 footprint

BORDEAUX, France (AFP) —

The Bordeaux region, one of France's premier wine growing regions, is launching an ambitious project to measure the industry's greenhouse gas emissions to bolster its environmental standards.

The Bordeaux Wine Board (Conseil Interprofessionel des Vins de Bordeaux or CIVB) said it wanted to find out just how much carbon dioxide, one of the main culprits in global warming, it generated.

"We know we produce 756 million bottles of wine per year and that 40 percent of that is exported," said Laurent Charlier of the CIVB, who will be working with environmental consultant Jean Marc Jancovici on the project.

"This study should give a clear idea of what different methods of production or shipment mean, in terms of environmental cost," he said.

[THIS IS NOTHING MORE THAN FRENCH CLIMATE CHANGE CHICANERY - THE FRENCH WINE INDUSTRY IS UNDER INCREASING COMPETITION FROM LOWER COST PRODUCERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD...]

The project, called "Bilan Carbone" in French, will run for the next six months in association with the French Environment Agency (ADEME), and the CIVB says the results will be released in September.

Jancovici, who has worked with the French government, France Telecom, Sony, Alcatel and luxury goods company LVMH, was also responsible for a similar project for producers in the Champagne region.

CIVB director, Roland Feredj, said the launch in October last year of France¹s national environmental action plan was in part responsible for the CIVB initiative but there is a practical side as well.

"Everyone is concerned with the costs of (wine) production, so if we can find ways of saving money and reducing carbon emissions, that would be ideal."

The aim of the study, which Feredj said would cost about 50,000 euros (70,000 dollars), are to give an overview of all emissions resulting from growing and tending vines, making wine, and bottling, storage and delivery.

It will also look at associated activities such as personnel, packaging, vine treatments and waste management.

"We intend to find out the carbon emissions for making different styles of wine," Charlier said. "And at what stages we need to concentrate our efforts to mitigate the emissions."

One Bordeaux winemaking family that has already launched a carbon reduction project, planting 10 hectares (25 acres) of sunflowers that will be used to produce fuel for tractors, welcomed the move, but said studying carbon emissions was a challenge.

"We think it's good and we are going to be part of the study group," said Aymeric Fournier for the Despagne Family which owns 300 hectares of vineyards in Bordeaux.

"This will give us an overview of the situation but it is a complicated thing to do," he warned.
"We started seriously in the spring of 2007 -- although we had already planted the sunflowers -- to look at our carbon emissions but deciding how far to take each measurement is not easy," Fournier said.

"For example, with any of the products needed for the vineyard we need to ask, how far has this come, how much carbon was emitted in its making? Or take the different cars and different distances that employees drive to work. It is a very detailed calculation," he said.

The Despagnes are already using an Australian protocol, developed by Australian wine industry consultant, Provisor, and the Yalumba Wine Company, to to measure their greenhouse gas emissions and compare them with global standards.

"It is quite a piece of work but we are determined to go ahead with it. It helps so much to have this kind of framework. We were a bit stumped as to where to go next before we saw this," Fournier said. "

The French Protection: The Resurgence of Colbertian Statist Economics

http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=367


Economic Brief: French Protectionism


Report Drafted By:


Erich Marquardt, Dr. Federico Bordonaro


15 September 2005


On August 31, France announced that it would protect from buyouts by foreign companies domestic industries it considers as strategic. French Finance Minister Thierry Breton stated that the country's "very sensitive sectors" would be shielded from foreign bids. While the complete list of protected industries has not been made public yet, some of the protected industries were leaked to the media. As reported by Les Echos, the protected industries include defense, biotechnology, space technology, telecommunication companies, casinos, encryption, IT security, and antidote production.



France's turn toward protectionism follows a global pattern where states with advanced economies are shielding their domestic industries from foreign competition and from potential state rivals.


French Protectionism Returns


For many observers, the ongoing wave of "economic patriotism" advocated by French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin is nothing else but the renewal of French-style protectionism marked by the Colbertian tradition of statist direction of the national economy.


After rumors circulated in the summer of 2005 about a possible bid from U.S. drinks giant PepsiCo Inc. for French food giant Danone, and a Wal-Mart bid on supermarket chain Carrefour, many in the French political landscape called for an immediate reaction by the current administration so that France's industrial gems could be saved from American takeover. Therefore, on July 27, de Villepin announced that he would gather all available forces to launch a new economic patriotism.


Additionally, France bailed out its major engineering company Alstom in order to promote the French idea of creating "national champions," and avoided Switzerland's Novartis from buying out the French and German pharmaceutical company Aventis by backing Sanofi's merger with Aventis to create Sanofi-Aventis.


E.U. Concern


Protectionist acts from one of the leading states of the European Union have caused justifiable concern in Brussels. Gregor Kreuzhuber, spokesman for the E.U. Commission, told the press that the E.U. does not "want to see any disguised protectionism" and that the E.U. would review France's proposed economic policy.


Paris, predicting the concern in Brussels, quickly argued that its actions would comply with E.U. economic laws. French Budget Minister Jean-Francois Cope explained to the press, "Our move is completely consistent with community law. … Each country is allowed to define 'strategic' sectors in accordance with national interests -- for example in the defense or sensitive technology sectors." Cope further stated, "It's strictly within this framework that the government is considering measures which would be comparable to those in other European Union countries."


While it is obvious that France will try to argue that its protectionist measures abide by E.U. rules and regulations, there is concern that Paris' actions could set an example for other E.U. states to take similar protectionist measures. The fact that the French have casinos listed as one of their strategic industries -- under the notion that casinos could be used for money laundering -- exemplifies E.U. concern that France's actions are "disguised protectionism."


In its attempt to avoid the E.U. from blocking the passage of the new legislation, France will no doubt try to protect only its most vital industries so as to not draw the scorn of Brussels, but also to protect enough industries so as to appeal to domestic interests at home.


Why Protectionism?


French protectionism partly emanates from Paris' concern with foreign companies purchasing major firms in strategic or pivotal industries. Similar to the way that the U.S. Congress reacted to China National Offshore Oil Corporation's attempted purchase of the U.S. energy company Unocal, Paris does not want to see vital industries owned by outside companies tied to the governments of foreign states.


Additionally, however, Paris also wants to protect its domestic industries so that the country does not sustain a loss of jobs, such as factories closing down and moving operations to Eastern Europe or Asia. It provides the French government popularity in time for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007; tackling unemployment and successfully coping with globalization's challenges are vital to enhance the administration's credibility. In fact, without appreciable results in reducing the jobless figure in the country, de Villepin will hardly get the necessary support to achieve his ambitious industrial and energy policy. [See: "Intelligence Brief: French Energy Policy"]


As previously mentioned, de Villepin made the protection of French manufacturers a major policy goal after the PepsiCo Inc. bid was announced. After the bid was presented, President Jacques Chirac was reported saying that "the splitting up and the instability of the capital of certain large French businesses are risk factors for employment and for our industrial strength." It was then that de Villepin boldly announced it was time for France to display "real economic patriotism," or, in other words, economic nationalism. He argued, "When times are hard, when the world is changing, it is a question of gathering our strengths … and defending France and things French."


While Paris' rhetoric is very bold, in the end the French policy is similar to unspoken protectionist policies in other states with advanced economies, as was most recently seen in the protectionist bid by the U.S. and the E.U. against Chinese textile imports.


The important difference, however, is that the protectionist actions in the face of increased Chinese textile imports were taken by the E.U. as a whole, whereas Paris' "economic patriotism" idea is distinctly French. [See: "Economic Brief: Textile Quotas"]


Despite this concern, Les Echos reported that the list of protected industries it acquired did not list any food companies or, for instance, oil companies. However, the French Industry Ministry did state that it would reserve the right to prevent foreign takeovers of companies that had subsidiaries involved in any of the listed "sensitive sectors" and that the government would make the decision to bar a foreign takeover on a case-by-case basis.


The Bottom Line


After decades of dominating political discourse, economic liberalism looks now in a crisis because important decision-makers (such as in France) perceive it as fiction that conceals the hard reality of economic warfare and power relations among states. If France's republican and social-democratic traditions form an axis with the neo-Gaullist right-wing and prevail in the short/medium term over the neo-liberal reformists, look for a new social and political bloc to take shape around the "economic patriotism" policy in France, with considerable consequences for the European Union as a whole.

110th Congressional Majority Adopts EU Position: Supports US Presidential Candidates With Anti-Liberal Trade Protectionist Agenda

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40856

CHALLENGES 2007-2008: U.S. Election Fever May Delay Doha Talks


Analysis by Aileen Kwa


IPS News


GENEVA, Jan 21 (IPS) -


A busy negotiating schedule is lined up for this year at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The question remains whether negotiators will have to continue passing the time as the powers-that-be in Washington are consumed by pre-election politics, or if the technical solutions which they have been working on could, in fact, lead to a conclusion of the Doha Development Round.



The chairs of the negotiations on agricultural and industrial products are expected to release another round of draft texts at the end of January. This will be followed by intense text-based negotiations.



If things go according to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy’s Plan A, modalities (new rules and commitments) for agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) are to be concluded by March or April.



There could even be what an African delegate termed a ‘‘medium-sized’’ ministerial meeting to endorse the modalities at this time, with a fully fledged ministerial meeting at the end of 2008 to conclude the Round.



There are varying opinions as to the likelihood of Plan A materializing. As 2007 slipped away and the U.S. entered both a recession and an even fiercer stage of partisan pre-election frenzy, it seems unlikely that Washington is in any mood to liberalise trade.



Lori Wallach of Public Citizen, based in Washington, told IPS that ‘‘there is no appetite for a Doha Round here. The only Doha deal that could possibly break this mood would have to be something so lopsidedly pro-U.S. big corporations that it would not be a feasible outcome.


[MS. WALLACH AND HER GROUP ARE ACTIVISTS THAT WISH FOR AMERICA TO ADOPT EUROPEAN NON-SCIENCE & NON-ECONOMICS PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL & HEALTH REGULATIONS AND STANDARDS] **


‘‘That is, if there was some sudden windfall pile of trade goodies to harvest without the U.S. having to give much, then that would get things moving here. We’re heading into a recession and trade is increasingly politically toxic, given our 800 billion dollar trade deficit and its effect in slowing our growth by two percentage points’’, she added.


[WHAT MS. WALLACH IS REFERRING TO IS PROTECTIONISM]


Referring to the increasingly unpopular North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Wallach observed, ‘‘the Democratic presidential candidates are all trying to ‘out anti-NAFTA’ each other. Remarkably, even half of the Republican presidential candidates are anti-NAFTA and anti-WTO.’’


[MS. WALLACH AND HER GROUP SUPPORT ANTI-LIBERAL TRADE RHETORIC BECAUSE IT PROMOTES EUROPEAN & WTO DIRECTOR PACAL LAMY'S EFFORTS TO INCORPORATE MORE PRECAUTIONARY PRINCIPLE & CULTURAL PREFERENCE EXCEPTIONS TO LIBERAL TRADE INTO THE WTO AGREEMENTS]**


See "Polluting the Future of the WTO", at: http://www.itssd.org/Publications/PollutingtheFuture.pdf


Then there is the issue of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the authority granted by the U.S. Congress to the U.S. president to negotiate trade agreements that Congress could approve or reject but not amend. President George W. Bush’s administration requires the TPA to conclude the Round.



According to Wallach, ‘‘Bush has a 5 percent chance of getting a Doha-only TPA. If there had been a broader window of opportunity, that was shut down at the end of last year when Bush vetoed or threatened to veto every single Democratic priority initiative passed by Congress.’’



According to a WTO negotiator from West Africa, ‘‘I have not seen any sign or commitment that 2008 is a definitive date. It is an aspiration, but I won’t be surprised if it will go to 2009. And if it does, the election in the U.S. would be over and they would be able to test the waters.’’



He said that within the Group of 33 (or G33, a coalition of developing countries which has been calling for the protection of food security and rural livelihoods), ‘‘we have criticized ourselves for being too flexible, and the flexibility should not be one-sided. We are waiting for reciprocity from the developed countries.



‘‘At the end of the day, we will have a blame game. Developed countries will ask for more liberalisation in NAMA and services and they will blame developing countries for not showing signs of flexibility. Developing countries will say that our interests have not been taken seriously,’ he added.



From his point of view, the U.S. and the EU are now very obviously working closely together, and ‘‘just from seeing that, I think that there will be no movement on their side.’’



However, not all negotiators share his prognosis for 2008. An East African negotiator underscored that ground has been covered on some technical issues. ‘‘The possibility of a conclusion looks positive, not completely, but more positive than before.’’ (END/2008)

EU Climate Change Chicanery: ITSSD Research Findings on European Disguised Protectionism Validated

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/01/22/us_warns_eu_on_using_climate_change_as_pretext/


http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/business/carbon.php


US warns EU on using climate change as pretext

By James Kanter and Stephen Castle,

International Herald Tribune,

22 January 2008

Official says it has been an excuse for protectionism


BRUSSELS - The United States warned the European Union yesterday against using climate change as a pretext for protectionism, setting the stage for trans-Atlantic tension over a new package of EU measures to combat global warming.


The pointed comments by the US trade representative, Susan Schwab, after talks in Brussels, came just two days before the European Commission introduced its proposals for cutting EU emissions at least 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.


"We have been dismayed at a variety of suggestions where we have seen the climate and the environment being used as an excuse to close markets," Schwab said after discussions with Peter Mandelson, her European counterpart.


President Nicolas Sarkozy of France has called for a carbon tax on imports to ensure that European companies that need to comply with tough environmental rules are not undercut by foreign competitors whose governments are not capping carbon emissions.


EU officials were not expected to propose such a measure tomorrow but were expected to keep alive the possibility of a so-called border tax to keep European industries competitive.


The EU pledge to protect European industry by 2011 at the latest will be aimed at assuaging powerful lobby groups from sectors like steel and aluminum manufacturing, which say they are facing higher costs than their overseas competitors because of the EU's determination to lead the world in climate protection.


Even so, EU officials hope to be able to avoid the issue, not least because any European border tax could be challenged at the World Trade Organization.


Instead, EU officials hope that other developed countries like the United States, which did not sign the Kyoto climate treaty, will join an international treaty by the end of the decade, making protectionist measures unnecessary.


Measures other than the border tax that are under discussion by EU officials and diplomats in Brussels include granting greater numbers of free pollution permits than planned. Officials say they believe such a method would not break world trade rules.


The EU also could condone global agreements within sectors like steel and cement, rather than between nations.


In that scenario, industries worldwide in a particular manufacturing sector would agree to cut their pollution by a certain amount, in theory leveling the competitive playing field.


EU officials say they are optimistic about a global climate accord after the recent meeting of nearly 200 nations in Bali, Indonesia, where agreement was reached on laying out a plan for negotiations that could produce a climate treaty by 2009.


But the Bali Action Plan faces high hurdles, including the persistently thorny problem of convincing the United States to take action even if fast-developing countries like China, which insists on developments getting higher priority than emissions curbs, fail to make similar pledges.


Schwab also took issue with Europe's attitude toward genetically modified foods, which she described as "perfectly safe."


She singled out France's decision to go slowly on cultivation of genetically modified corn.

Sarkozy Claims to Back Attali Commission's Liberalization Plan: But Rejects Recommendation to Scrap Precautionary Principle!

Sarkozy backs liberalisation plan [???]


http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/17d878de-c9c0-11dc-b5dc-000077b07658.html


By Ben Hall in Paris


Financial Times


January 23 2008 20:04



President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday gave his backing to a far-reaching plan to liberalise the French economy and raise its trend rate of growth to 3 per cent within five years.


Mr Sarkozy said he supported “in the main” the conclusions of a commission chaired by Jacques Attali, the economist and former socialist presidential adviser, and would convene a ministerial committee next month to decide which of the measures to put in place first.


The Attali commission produced 316 proposals to liberalise sheltered sectors of the economy, cut the cost and improve the flexibility of the labour market, and streamline public administration.


“If some people have been alarmed by the contents of your proposals, I find them rather reasonable in the main”, Mr Sarkozy said as he received the report from Mr Attali.


The president signalled his support for opening up regulated services, such as taxis, to greater competition, saying some professional regulations were “perfectly obsolete”. But he said this would require careful negotiation with those affected “who cannot be ignored for reasons of equity”.


Opening up regulated professions is likely to be one of the most hotly contested recommendations.


François Hollande, the opposition socialist leader, criticised “the many worrying proposals” in the Attali report.


According to Mr Attali, Mr Sarkozy disagreed with only two of the commission’s 316 recommendations: the scrapping of the precautionary principle (conferring the benefit of the doubt against technological innovations) enshrined in France’s constitution and the abolition of the department, the revolutionary-era local government unit.


However, Mr Sarkozy said nothing about the commission’s recommendation for France to open its doors to 250,000 immigrants each year as a way of lifting its growth rate by 0.5 per cent.


The Attali commission set out a blue print for cutting unemployment from 8 to 5 per cent, halving poverty and cutting public spending as a share of national output by 1 percentage point a year.


The report makes many sweeping recommendations.


To take advantage of the growth in financial services, the commission proposes that France harmonise its entire set of financial and stock market regulation with that of Britain’s two remove the competitive disadvantage of Paris as a financial centre relative to London.


Although the commission argues its recommendations are broadly cost neutral, it is counting on the Caisse des Depôts et Consignations, France’s sovereign wealth fund, to help finance ten new university “centres of excellence” and universal access to super high-speed internet services by 2016.


Some of the most radical measures relate to public services. The Attali commission wants to confer some activities, such as tax collection, to executive agencies.


It is also proposing a radical shake-up of the schools system, scrapping catchment areas and giving parents a voucher to encourage competition between institutions.