A personal pollution plan

Idealism alone is not enough to drive carbon emissions down: we should give each individual a pollution entitlement

Arne Jon Isachsen
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 March 2009 18.00 GMT

Trying to change how people behave by pure persuasion is futile. Making them act out of self-interest is the way forward. Idealism and painting a bleak and scary picture of the future may be useful as a way of waking people up. But to deal effectively with the challenge of developing the world economy in a sustainable way, idealism alone will not work – we have to get the incentives right. Bono and U2 have done us a great service here. They pointed out what was wrong. Then Bono moved from Ireland to the Netherlands for tax reasons.
The system of carbon credits is a start, but to ensure growth is sustainable, and at the same time to focus on the needs of the world's poor, we need a new concept – that of "entitlements". The world must accept that every single individual on the globe is entitled to emit the same quantity of greenhouse gases and other pollutants with a global reach. The total amount of each type of pollutant that the world can cope with must be decided on by researchers operating professionally and at arm's length from politicians. This amount should be divided by the world's population, and national quotas allocated accordingly.
An awareness of exactly how much pollution – and greenhouse gases in particular – the world can stomach would give developing countries a bargaining chip. If they agree to reduce their population growth, and we accept a formula of pollution quotas based on population size, we can all make progress. Current population figures should be the basis for quotas; any future population growth beyond accepted and agreed levels should lead to a cut in the allocation of pollutants.
So a viable system for monitoring emissions needs to be developed. It would have to allow for the ability to soak up greenhouse gases through proper forestry management. Brazil and other heavily forested countries could thereby sell emissions quotas based upon how much CO2 their country's remaining vegetation will have absorbed.
Countries whose pollution exceeds their quota would have to buy quotas from other countries. The higher the cost of emitting CO2, the stronger would be the incentives to behave in an energy efficient manner. More fuel-efficient cars and aeroplanes would be developed. Not only people but also goods would travel shorter distances. Technologies that enable people to communicate as easily if they were in the same room – but virtually – would receive a boost.
Manufacturing would not only require capital and labour, but also permits to pollute, and there would be markets for these permits as well as for capital and labour. Politicians would be able to focus on encouraging and educating people about the new rules of the game, rather than try to decide which projects are more environmentally friendly.
Similarly, the exploitation of marine resources beyond the current territorial limits should be based on tradable entitlements, proportional to population.
Over time, the price to emit CO2 would probably come down, as new technologies and new types of behaviour emerged. People and businesses would adapt to a new set of relative prices. Economic growth would continue. But what is actually produced would change significantly. In this new environment, where each individual had an equal entitlement to emit pollutants, international aid would be significantly curtailed. (History, after all, has shown that development aid never led to much development anyway.) Money as a gift makes countries dependent rather than developed. Only by applying this principle of "entitlement" can we avoid the fate Garrett Hardin predicted in his Tragedy of the Commons.
In association with the Global Policy Institute, Comment is Free and Germany's Zeit-Online are running a series of commentaries from countries not invited to the G20 summit. Look out for further views from Poland, Chile, Iran and Venezuela in the next week