What the White House wants at G20
TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: The world’s economic leaders are in Pittsburgh, Penn. this morning as the G20 Summit gets underway. It’s the third meeting of the world’s top economies in the aftermath of the financial crisis. And the White House will use the two-day summit to push for new banking and financial regulations, and ending fossil fuel subsidies. Reporter Joel Rose has more.
Joel Rose: The Obama administration may find the appetite for tougher financial regulations starting to wane as world economies begin to recover.
Steven Schrage: The sign of green shoots seem to be weakening the will of many countries to confront this aggressively.
Steven Schrage is an economist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He thinks there is some consensus around the idea of requiring banks to have more capital on hand.
Schrage: I think that’s where we’re going to see the most progress. In other areas, there are still kind of huge underlying rifts between the U.S. and the Europeans and others.
The White House will also push to end subsidies for fossil fuels. Steve Kretzmann at the nonprofit Oil Change International says that would encourage a shift toward cleaner energy.
Steve Kretzemann: Definitely removing subsidies is a great idea. The question is, what subsidies do you remove first, and how do you do it?
So far, Kretzmann says the White House is focused on eliminating subsidies for consumption, which mainly benefit poor countries. Kretzmann says that could make the plan a tough sell to some G20 members.
I’m Joel Rose for Marketplace.
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