Japan to buy its way out of pollution woes
The Daily Yomiuri is reporting that Japan has reached an ageement under which the Japanese government and domestic firms will purchase a part of China’s greenhouse gas emissions quotas in order to reach reduction levels dictated by the Kyoto Protocol
The envisaged scheme is part of the clean development Mechanism (CDM), under which industrialized countries are able to use their own technologies and funds for projects based in developing countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions and offset these reductions against their own output.
Under the agreement, Japan would receive the right in return for development projects that it bankrolls in China.
What a scam!
Air pollution is so bad in China that clear blue skies merit blog coverage, complete with a photo, so how is it they are able to “sell” some of their quotas?
Also, if the whole point of the Kyoto scheme is emissions reductions, what point does it make to simply shift around the rights to pollute?
Scam indeed. That was my first thought. Poor taxpayers of Japan. As a high tax-paying resident of Quebec, I feel your pain!
January 4th, 2008 at 12:24 pmWell, Al Gore and the Chinese dictators always have been partners in crime - and they both gain heavily from trading in carbon credits.
This is especially ironic since a good chunk of the air pollution in Japan is blown over from China. If Beijing is wondering where all the stink went, I can tell them it’s a hazy day today in Fukuoka.
January 4th, 2008 at 1:07 pmIt’s not a scam at all, it’s actually based on sound economic principles.
Basically by making the carbon credits tradeable you make them worth something, which is a way of giving an incentive to countries to get more credits.
In this case, it puts an incentive for Japan to pollute less (because now there is a dollar figure on pollution), and it also gives an incentive for China to pollute less, since for every tonne of carbon they don’t emit, they can instead sell it.
Of course it’s not quite as simple. If the quotas are set too high, countries widely cheat the system, or indeed if the spending on credits just offsets other spending.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:32 pmBut these problems can occur with other schemes as will, they are hardly unique to credit trading schemes.
How can an artificially created market be based on sound economic principles?
Don’t markets based on sound economic principles kind of just spring up out of nowhere?
January 4th, 2008 at 8:53 pmExactly. Government created systems are, without exception, never based on sound economic principles. They are based on increasing the power and wealth of the few insiders. This goes for those ridiculous ISO standards as well.
Democracies already have an incentive to pollute less - it’s called popular demand. Authoritarian states like China don’t have to worry about that. They have tanks to deal with popular demand.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:05 pmI still say it’s a scam. At the end of the day, carbon emissions naturally tend to go down as a country becomes wealthier. Why then does such an artificial framework supposedly based on “sound” economic principles need to be applied to shortcut this process? I figure it’s to allow the biggest carbon offenders - developing countries like China - a way to get rich countries to bankroll what they would have otherwise bankrolled themselves (when their people begin demanding the right to live with a cleaner environment as a dividend of rising national wealth). Smells like a scam to me.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:15 pmOh yes, it’s based on sound economic principles indeed, but moreso it’s a scheme to keep the imbalance between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries in place. As with tax barriers on agricultural produce to keep developing countries from competing with the domestic farmers, the new CO2 emmision economy is d3signed to keep developing worlds from expanding their industrial infrastructure. It’s a hoax and a croq of protectionistic shite with nary a thought given to the environment.
January 5th, 2008 at 2:44 amThe problem is not the system, it’s what people make of the system.
Anyway, we need less technocratic tools and more real leaders driven by ethics.
January 5th, 2008 at 3:58 amIt’s not what the people make of the system. It’s the wrong system. If I try to make beef stew with fish heads and lettuce, it’s not gonna work, and it’s because I chose the wrong recipe. I would not say “if only fish heads and lettuce were beef and potatoes, the recipe would be great!”
Likewise, saying “if only the people were different,” is to indulge in fantasy. Changing a political system is very, very difficult - but it’s still easier than changing human nature.
Which is the brilliance of modern economics vs. autocrats.
January 5th, 2008 at 9:44 amNot all the people need to think different. Only the leaders need to. What we need is strong and wise leaders who take the right decisions for our future. As usual, people would follow the leadership.
January 5th, 2008 at 7:37 pmYeh, you know, there are many things I don’t understand in this world and this buying carbon credits from other countries is one of them. It’s not a scam per se, but I don’t see how it helps efforts to mitigate global warming. But experts say it does. So maybe it does. Still, I don’t get it.
January 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pmI saw a documentary about that on TV recently.
January 5th, 2008 at 8:32 pmFrom what they showed, this system gives funds to developping countries who want to build green power plants for example.
Well, if you have some free time : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissions_trading
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