How to get rich from greenhouse gas leftovers
Blogged by: Nina Brenjo
Ever thought that greenhouse gas emissions could help developing countries get rich? Alex Evans, former special adviser to the British secretary of state for international development explains how in Foreign Policy bi-monthly.
The international community would need to agree a limit for global emissions and then divide the total emissions among individual countries. Evans argues that any countries which didn't reach their emissions limits could sell the credit to other countries who'd exceeded their allotment. As things stand, many developing countries would almost certainly benefit from such an arrangement, since they pollute far less.
So far, so simple. So, what's the catch?
For a start, every country would need to agree to this, says Evans. At the moment, there are no limits agreed for developing countries as they didn't participate in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. They were worried that industrialised nations would use the emission thresholds to hamper everyone else's economic growth. But without limits on emissions there's no way of profiting from excesses.
Dividing greenhouse gas emissions sounds easy, but at the moment no one's budging on their entrenched positions, which means developing countries want emission targets to be based on countries' populations, not on the current emission levels.
This is "politically impossible" for developed countries, in Evans' view, so he suggests a solution: equal allocations should happen gradually, over a few decades, so that developed countries have time to adapt and developing countries would still get what they're demanding in the end.
If the scheme is successful, it could make the need for foreign aid obsolete, Evans argues. Financial benefits from selling surplus emissions credit would eventually dwarf the current $100 billion given out in debt relief and foreign aid.
What better example of "trade not aid" could you find?
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2 responses to “How to get rich from greenhouse gas leftovers”
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17 Feb 2007 10:49:40 GMT
That appears as a crude way of "buying your way out" of the responsibility of managing carbon dioxide emission levels by developed countries. This will just give developed countries an excuse to cling to fossil fuels, instead of furthering the goal of switching to renewable energy sources.
Only upside is that this will at least give developing countries the trade benefit of developed countries, from their lack of industrial infra-structure.13 Mar 2007 13:50:40 GMT
This is a very nice way to preserve the status quo, isn't it? We are talking about trade benefits to third world countries right? Suddenly these fellows get a new commodity to trade, simply because they are not living upto par with people in 'developed' countries.
What are they supposed to do with this windfall? Pay it back to 'developed' nations to buy the essentials? 'Develop' their countries so they do not have any more 'Carbon Surplus' to sell? Once it becomes money, once it becomes a commodity, once it becomes a 'trade', we start talking about profits, and control. Sadly profits and control overtakes the good intentions and goals. Instead of this trading surpluses, how about setting up a global tribune to levy 'fines' on countries who put most emissions? The money collected could go to subsidise green technologies with a preference to countries who have lesser emmissions.