Energy Policy and Climate Change: North America in the Context of the Western Hemispher

In this article, Sidney Weintraub and Francisco González address the issues of energy policy and climate change in the Western Hemisphere. Specifically, their debate focuses on which would be the best regulatory framework for the control of future emissions of CO2 and other gases that contribute to global warming in the energy/climate change subsystems of North America (Canada, United States and Mexico) and the South American subcontinent, where energy is less integrated and per capita consumption is lower compared to the former. If the United States adopts a cap and trade system, they argue, cooperation on energy/climate change in the hemisphere would yield benefits, namely by increasing our potential to preserve carbon reserves, such as the tropical rainforests of South America. And in the unlikely event the United States opts to levy a direct tax on CO2 emissions, the North American alternative would produce tangible results, given the high level of energy integration that already exists between Canada, the United States and Mexico, conclude the authors.