1. Economics Before Carbon can be traded, a quantative limit has to be set on the carbon emitted by the emitters. The economic basis for carbon trading is attached to the concept of property rights (Goldemberg, 1996). 1.1. Cost and Valuation Emitters of GHG’s do not own up to the full costs for the consequences of their actions (IMF, 2008), thus causing an economic problem with climate change. Emitters face certain costs such as fuel used. However there are costs that are not necessarily included in the price of their products or services. These costs are known ad external costs (Halsnaes, 2007). These costs are referred to as ‘external’ because they are not faced by emitters. These costs may affect the welfare of others. The emission of GHG’s also affects the welfare of others and the natural environment (Toth, 2001). People living the future will have suffered because of the actions of the present GHG’s emitters. These external costs can be converted in a monetary unit, which can be added to their private costs. This way, GHG’s emitters can take full responsibility for their actions (IMF, 2008). 1.2. Voluntary Carbon Markets Voluntary carbon markets apply to everybody that are not subject to mandatory limits, such as individuals, companies, and other entities, whom wishes to offset their emissions by buying CER’s. They are used for various applications such as neutralizing their carbon footprints. There is no specific emission allocation, but carbon footprints are used as the baseline from which emission reduction targets are set. This type of market is referred to a ‘buyer beware market’, because credits undergo less rigorous verification methods. Overall, the carbon market grew to $126 billion in 2008 from the $63 billion in... ... middle of paper ... ...tion. Whereas nations that have less financial resources may find that they cannot afford the permits needed for developing an industrial infrastructure thus, inhibiting those countries’ economic development. Some companies in China started artificial production of GHG’s with the sole purpose of recycling and gaining carbon credits. Practices similar to the above mentioned happened in India. After the credit is earned, it is sold to companies in the US and Europe. 5. Crime The electronic nature of carbon credits and their registries make the carbon trading market particularly susceptible to technology crimes such as hacking. Although carbon credits can be identified by unique serial numbers, making it possible to track stolen credits, this can be undermined by weak regulatory oversight, particularly when the stolen credits are traded across different jurisdictions.
The issue presented in this paper is how one can aim to reduce the amounts released, and what the best ways to solve this problem are. This has been long debated amongst scientists, businessmen, Industry-owners, and politicians amongst many other eminent figures in society. The four major approaches to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere include: subsidies of alternative energy, cap and trade, carbon taxes, and command and control regulation. We will examine and compare the effectiveness of two of these methods: The carb...
The author gives reliable examples, facts, estimates and statistics, which make his arguments to be based on logical reasoning. For instance, according to Andrew Revkin, European countries are using a cap-and-trade system that is effective in imposing charges on carbon. Also coal-burning plants are being shut in China. However, he believes that charging on emission is not a radical idea and the charge will not have any effect on American competitiveness.
[11]Reviewing Existing And Proposed Emissions Trading Systems. (2010, Nov). Retrieved May 18, 2014, from International Energy Agency: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/ets_paper2010.pdf
The threat of climate change in recent years is recognized as a real and potentially catastrophic threat to the health and welfare of our planet, as industrialized nations continue to run their economies by burning carbon into the atmosphere. Recently, it has taken on a larger role in our national media, the public, and the government, as the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more evident. In the United States, for example, the year 2007 brought the first major piece of legislation in the country to address the problem under the Climate Security Act, and the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Today, many politicians, economists, scientists, and environmentalists propose a solution that would create a regulated market based on emissions into the atmosphere, effectively internalizing all negative externalities. It’s called cap and trade, and it has a lot of potential to help incentivize the implementation of alternative forms of energy, has several different variations and alternatives, and has already been successful in many programs around the world.
In practice they are not that significant, however, or even they can generate revenue that can be rebated to consumers or used to lower other taxes. According to the research from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), economic growth is only slightly affected by the efficient climate policies; for example, the estimated costs of just 2°C of global warming would be of the order of 0.5–2% of global GDP by 2030. It means reducing emissions by 20% would cost less than 1% of economic growth, which is not
One way that globalization limits sustainable prosperity is the amount of environmental destruction that occurs in our growing world. For example, a process called shipwrecking is the deconstruction of ships that are no longer able to function properly. The ships are pulled up onto beaches in Bangladesh and are taken apart by workers with blow torches. The ships tend to rust leaving the beaches a reddish orange color. This rust can get into the ocean affecting many other parts of our world. Also, gasses that are produced and released into the environment from the blowtorches help contribute to the already occurring global warming. Another scary fact is that there is nearly one death per day in ship breaking yards, and nearly one quarter of them get some form of cancer due to the harsh chemicals. Ship breaking is a very dangerous job and puts many lives at risk. A big factor that helps wreck the environment is the large manufacturing plants that are located in many different countri...
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution, we have been using fossil fuels to power our lives, and factories. Little did we know that our miracle energy producer was destroying our planet. The burning of fossil fuels produces a byproduct called carbon dioxide. This natural occurring gas does not harm the planet in any way when released in small quantities, but at the rate we have released it, there is nowhere for it to go so it becomes trapped in the atmosphere. When the gas becomes trapped in the atmosphere, it creates a “Green House” effect. This effect causes the surface temperature to rise, which has adverse effects on the planet. A number of bills to regulate carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have been proposed and even accepted,
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society is facing today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been slowest” (geocraft). There are no known solutions yet to reverse these effects in the environment, however there are many things people can do to prevent it from increasing. By implementing a carbon tax the government can tax corporations on how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. With the extra money from the tax, scientist can invest in alternative ways to reduce how much carbon is emitted. Reducing climate change is going to take years and so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but meanwhile we can use that extra money to begin cleaning up the atmosphere. There are many ways to explain climate change, some say its due to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, others say it is the burning of the fossils fuels, some even say it’s the greenhouse gases. All of these sayings mean the exact same thing, no matter how one says it. I believe there are more convenient ways to solve climate change; and if the government would to implement a carbon tax on companies they will then be forced to re-evaluate all the carbon they emit to the environment and red...
Because reduction in used of CO2 emissions in one industry may result in the increase CO2 emissions in some other industry. Additionally, change to emission can also be directed by government regulations to use energy and emission reducing technology. On the other hand, cash grants in lieu of taxes for individuals and corporation that implement emission controls and alternative fuel
The climate on the Earth is changing. Ice age is interleaved with the global warming. In the present age, the temperature of the Earth's climate system continue rapidly increase and it leads to global warming. Global warming is the process of gradual growth of average annual temperature of the atmosphere of the Earth and World ocean. The average temperature on the Earth was increased by 0.6C. There are various reasons of global warming, such as human activities, natural events, increasing of gases, such as carbon dioxide in atmosphere and solar activity (Global warming). Nearly 200 countries have signed Kyoto Protocol and they must reduce four greenhouse gases, in order to struggle with global warming. There are several perspectives about effects of global warming on environment. In this essay will be considered the impacts and consequences of global warming . In the process, it will be clarified that there are positive and negative impacts of global warming.
...ology, but presumably they can indeed not offset the cost incurred in carbon storage. Hence overall the economics are negatively contributed (36). Although this doesn’t factor-in significantly in the growth or fall of CO2-EOR projects still it has reasonable contribution in putting a foundation for the future of such a technology.
The first model above demonstrates the negative production externality that is caused by factories that emit carbon pollution. A negative production externality occurs when the production or creation of a product results in negative spillover costs to society. In this case, it is the whole world’s population that is experiencing these negative spillover costs, as the carbon being emitted into the atmosphere from factories’ production of goods leads to global warming issues. Third parties (people who had no involvement in the transaction) are suffering as the environment surrounding them is being destroyed by carbon emissions from corporations. This can be seen above in the first model, as the market is producing where MSB (benefit of society) and MPC (private cost) meets, thus leading to a market failure and high external costs for society. Here, MSC (cost to society) is greater than the MPC. This results in a welfare loss, as the product is being overproduced and MSB (benefit of society) is not equal to MSC and maximum utility as well as allocative efficiency are not reached. Theref...
CCS is a technology for storing carbon emissions underground to slow global warming. It is under development, still several years from commercial deployment, and a key question for policy makers and power companies is whether or not it is a cost effective option compared to the other low carbon alternatives. The question is “should the Australian Government be subsidizing and promoting carbon capture and storage?”
If we are only based on the current greenhouse gases to determine who has the biggest burden to solve climate change, industrialized countries have less greenhouse emission than the past, whereas developing countries have a higher greenhouse gases emission. According to data compiled by the “Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency”, China now is the top emitter in the world, it is responsible for 28.6% for current greenhouse gases emission, whereas US is only responsible for 16%. However, for historical greenhouse gases emission, US is the top emitter, it is responsible for 28.8% greenhouse gases emission, whereas China is only responsible for 9%. In order to have a sustainable development, certain amount of greenhouse emission cannot be avoided. It is definitely not fair to ignore what people have done in the past and shirk off the responsibility of solving climate change to developing countries. Furthermore, adding extra burden on developing countries cannot solve climate change; instead, it possibly aggravates poverty, famine and inequality. Eventually, it forms a vicious circle, and it slows down the progress of solving climate change. Thus, historical responsibility not only determines who should be responsible for the compensation to the victims, it also acts as a motivation to force the emitters to solve the problems they have made in the
Nowadays, we can see a lot of campaigns to reduce this humans’ contribution of greenhouse gases to atmosphere. These campaign’s missions are usually about reducing the energy that we use, convincing us to use recyclable energy, stopping the deforestation... These missions are all about mitigating to climate change. Climate change mitigation is the actions to limit the significant rate of long term climate change. In other words, climate change mitigation is all of the actions about lowering the humans’ greenhouse gas contribution to atmosphere. It is now too late for humans’ to prevent the effects of climate change, but these effects can be reduced in the future with mitigation. The most popular treaty, disenchant of humanity, is Kyoto Protocol. The main goal of Kyoto Protocol is reducing the human emitted greenhouse gases, in other word, mitigation. Also in ways that underlying national differences in GHG emissions, wealth, and capacity to make th...