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The Price of Pollution – Who should Pay?

October 22, 2009 by Debbie Dragon

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Pollution affects us all. Our actions can ripple half-way around the world and cause harm to people who we will never see, and of course the reverse is also true. The staggering truth of this is frightening.

Who should bear the cost of pollution?

At a special forum held in Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, UN Officials met to warm up talks in preparation for the UN Summit later this year in Copenhagen. The African Commission presented a united front on the issue of pollution. They are demanding reparation and damages to deal with the effects of climate change on their continent to the tune of $65 billion.

According to World Bank estimates, developing nations stand to bear 80% of the burden of climate change, despite only being responsible for one third of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

From the standpoint of developing countries, those statistics just don’t seem fair. The state of Texas alone, with 30 million inhabitants, produces more greenhouse gases than 1 billion Africans all together. This alone should be enough to speak to the responsibility of the polluter in the States.

But of course this money has to come from somewhere, and Americans may not be in the frame of mind to accept another charge on their already strained bank accounts.

This call for support from developing countries coincides with a bill to Limit Carbon Emissions that is currently scraping its way through congress.

The bill proposes to reduce carbon emissions by 17 – 20% by the year 2020. Detractors worry that the passing of the bill will hurt the already struggling economy by pushing up energy prices, because it will in effect constrict supply in the effort to promote alternative sources of energy. It could also hurt coal producing regions and depress energy intensive industries like steel manufacturing and its by-products… namely the auto industry.

All of this spells more bad news for the American public, who quite understandably may be sick of glum forecasts.

Which brings us back to the question… who should pay for the effects of pollution?

Developing nations may be sympathetic to the tough economic climate, but someone has to foot the bill and that someone is likely to be those largely responsible for the damage in the first place.

Africa supported calls for industrialized countries to cut their carbon emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by the year 2020 and also hopes to benefit more from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which was established under the Kyoto Protocol.

CDM awards carbon credits to participating companies for projects established in poorer nations with the aim of reducing or averting greenhouse gas emissions. A company may undertake the creation of a hydro or solar power plant in a developing country. It is a way of putting back into the environment as a show of appreciation for all that is taken out, but it also provides green jobs and establishes renewable resources which have a long lasting impact.

The outcome of the UN Summit in December of this year promises to play an important role in answering our question.

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