BRUSSELS, Belgium, September 27 /PRNewswire/ --

The International Council for Capital Formation (ICCF), a leading
Brussels based free market think tank, today warned the Conservative Party
against adopting the recommendations put forward by the recent Quality of
Life Commission.

Speaking ahead of the important climate talks in Washington that
President Bush is to chair, Dr Margo Thorning, ICCF Managing Director, said:

"I find the prospect of a proposal to tax the poor out of the sky, off
the roads and away from the supermarket car park too much. This kind of
nanny-state approach is the precise reverse of the empowering message of
traditional Conservatism with its emphasis on low taxes and free movement of
goods and services. I suspect David Cameron has by now grasped how
politically dangerous all this is to him."

The major economies responsible for 85% of global greenhouse gas
emissions will be participating in this series of meetings. This gathering in
Washington, of 16 countries including the EU and UK known as the Major
Economies Process, could have a truly effective and historic impact on global
greenhouse gas reductions.

"Transferring the cleanest, most energy-efficient technologies to
countries like China and India will yield significant benefits," said Dr
Thorning. "According to analysis recently conducted by the ICCF, lowering the
emissions intensity of developing countries to that currently associated with
new investment in the U.S. would be roughly equal to what would be
accomplished under the Kyoto Protocol by 2012 -- if all 39 signatory counties
were to meet their goals."

Successive cost-benefit analyses in the US and EU have shown that an
international emissions trading system solely reliant on holding future
governments to targets agreed today is very unlikely and unworkable.

In the U.S. global reductions of greenhouse gases can be achieved without
the heavy hand of regulatory mandates. The U.S. has already seen dramatic
reductions in energy use and energy intensity. For example, U.S. carbon
emissions fell by 1.3% in 2006 compared to 2005 in spite of strong economic
and population growth. Energy intensity (the amount of energy required to
produce a euro of output) has fallen by 20% over the 1992-2004 period in the
U.S. compared to only 12% in the EU with its mandatory approach to emission
reductions. Absolute energy use also declined in the US in 2006.

The ICCF believes that initiatives such as the Asia-Pacific Partnership
and the new Major Economies Process, a group of 16 largest carbon-emitting
countries, can achieve global emission reductions more quickly and cheaply
than mandatory cap and trade systems.

Web site: http://www.ICCFglobal.org