Big U.S. companies obviously want a seat at the table when it’s time to draw up America’s plan to fight climate change. A year after issuing its “Call for Action,” the U.S. Climate Action Partnership—a group of 30-odd companies like Alcoa, GE, GM, Ford, and several environmental groups—released today the list of nine principles it wants policymakers to keep in mind when they’re hammering out climate deals. But when it comes to the really tricky stuff, USCAP—like U.S. politicians so far—punted.

The main principles call for global involvement in any climate plan, and lots of carrots for developing countries. But the thorniest issue of all is left for later. That is—when countries move at different speeds to tackle climate change, it creates an uneven playing field for plenty of industries. Dirty industries penalized by restrictive legislation can move where laws are lax, killing jobs while providing no benefit to the environment.

USCAP recognizes that one of the biggest political hot potatoes with America’s climate-change plans is what it will do to industries like steel, aluminum, cement, and chemicals. They compete in global markets, but not all their competitors will have the same costs if the U.S. puts a steep pricetag on greenhouse-gas emissions. It’s really more a political question than an economic one—the most-affected sectors account for 50% of manufacturing emissions, but only 3% of U.S. output and 2% of employment.

USCAP says it wants to protect those industries, but hasn’t decided quite how. Ideally, the rest of the world would play ball, so the playing field will be level. Until then, USCAP says, the U.S. shouldn’t toy with tariffs or any punitive measures that could fall afoul of World Trade Organization rules.

Rob Bradley is USCAP’s point man on the issue. He’s the director of World Resources Institute’s International Climate Policy Initiative. “The best remedy is multilateral cooperation,” he says—though China and India have repeatedly said that they’re not ready to do the heavy lifting for two centuries of Western industrial development. So in the meantime? ...