The original text of John McCain’s Monday climate speech raised the specter of economic penalties for developing countries if they don’t join international climate efforts, but the candidate dropped that reference when actually delivering the address. As the Associated Press puts it:
The GOP presidential contender … prodded China and India — two major emitters of the greenhouse gases blamed for the planet’s warming — to join the effort, although he muted planned talk of tariffs against them in favor of “effective diplomacy” to encourage their compliance.
An aide later said the Arizona senator didn’t want to be interpreted as being “at odds with his commitment to open trade.”
Here are the prepared remarks:
And if industrializing countries seek an economic advantage by evading those standards, I would work with the European Union and other like-minded governments that plan to address the global warming problem to develop a cost equalization mechanism to apply to those countries that decline to enact a similar cap.
And here’s what McCain actually ended up saying:
And if industrializing countries seek an economic advantage by evading those standards, I would work with the European Union and other like-minded governments that plan to address the global warming problem to develop effective diplomacy, effect a transfer of technology, or other means to engage those countries that decline to enact a similar cap.
