Polluting rights

Global warming is best tackled if all the world’s citizens have the right to
emit the same amount of carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas. So
says Britain’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, in a report on
climate change published last week. The objective, says the commission, would be
to give each country a pollution quota based on its population. Heavily
polluting nations could then buy rights to discharge more CO₂ from poor
nations which produce little. The commission, which makes 87 recommendations,
says there is “a moral imperative to act now to curb emissions.”