From Jonathan Loh, World Wide Fund for Nature International, Gland, Switzerland
The flaw in all proposals for trading our way out of the climate crisis with carbon dioxide permits derives from a remarkable faith in market economics, combined with a perverse desire to own parts of the biosphere and buy and sell them like a commodity, or in this case a derivative (Forum, 29 April)
I was particularly astounded by the suggestion of issuing the entire adult population of the world with smart cards which would be credited with each individual’s carbon dioxide quota at the beginning of each year. Forget for a moment the mundane logistical and administrative obstacles, the nightmare of monitoring and verifying of emissions, not to mention the question of children’s rights to emit carbon dioxide. Schemes such as this will go nowhere because they fail to address the north-south political conflicts that we have already seen in the Climate change Convention and which sent governments away from Berlin virtually empty-handed.
Assuming that I am an average consumer in the industrialised world, my annual carbon dioxide emission is 11.6 tonnes. If you are an average consumer in a developing country, your annual emission is 2.4 tonnes. Our carbon dioxide quotas, based on the global average emission, would be 4.4 tonnes a year.
Trade in emissions permits should aim to redress the imbalance of greenhouse gas emissions between rich and poor. A low price, favourable to the industrialised world, would allow high energy consumers to continue business as usual. A high price might do the trick, but would that be fair? Free marketeers know in any case that if permits are not allowed to find their own value, then the black market will undermine the whole system.
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The trouble is, as with many environmental problems, we are abusing what is essentially a free resource. What we do not pay for, or own, we do not value. But parcelling up the environment and giving it a price tag is no solution; privatising a public good does not address questions of equity or sustenance. Preaching voodoo economics won’t solve anything.
