To those following the danger of a world financial collapse we commend the latest from France’s prime minister, Dominique de Villepin. Mr. de Villepin told the audience at a conference on what the left likes to call sustainable development that early next year the Fifth Republic will propose a system of punitive tariffs that would be applied to imports from countries that have not signed on to the Kyoto Protocol for controlling emissions of greenhouse gases.

Alas, the comment is impossible to ignore in America, which has signed but not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. The concern is not so much the implications for American trade in and of itself but the danger that the move might embolden the new Democratic majority to adopt a protectionist stance in an effort to wrest concessions from President Bush on Kyoto or, for that matter, other left-wing policy nostrums.

The scientific problems with global warming theories have been written about widely, including Fred Singer’s dispatch in the adjacent columns earlier this week. Nonetheless, 163 countries, including all the members of the European Union, have signed on to the Kyoto protocol, which requires reducing greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels. There’s just one problem — the Europeans haven’t been able to reduce their emissions.

If reducing emissions is a virtue, France itself has managed to do pretty well, but overall the 15 pre-2004 members of the EU are falling behind in respect of their goal of an 8% reduction by 2012 from the level of emissions in 1990. Meeting that target would cost billions of the fiat currency they use in Europe, the euro, paid for through a combination of taxes and higher priced goods produced by more expensive manufacturing processes. Not to mention things like the home improvements some Europeans are hoping individual families will undertake to make their houses greener.

No wonder that Monsieur de Villepin would mull trade sanctions on non-Kyoto countries. The tariffs would be the only way to compensate for the competitive disadvantage created by this climate folly. But the strategy has consequences. The last time EU-15 greenhouse gas emission dipped significantly below 1990 levels happened to coincide with an economic slowdown in the mid 1990s, when growth was negative and unemployment was in the double digits. The slowdown wasn’t caused by efforts to cut emissions, but it does show that emissions and economic growth tend to be related. One could just as easily, in other words, slow the economy intentionally to cut down on emissions. Which is what Europe will get if it goes the tariff route.