It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the love and courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace life like a lover.
Carbon emissions trading currently underway in many parts of the world including Europe is suggested to be the solution for providing incentives to corporations to reduce their emissions. Lately, I have been thinking about how a Carbon Tax would be a good medium-term solution to decreasing carbon emissions. Economists in generally prefer a cap-and-trade system than a tax. However, tax in this scenario could be more beneficial.
In the past week I came across two articles. One in the Australian Financial Review (not available online) and the other is a report (PDF) by Robert J. Shapiro which was blogged on the Green Wombat.
The AFR article makes some important points. It says that a emission system can take many years to start and even then it mostly effects the ‘stationary energy’ sector. However, a carbon tax can be implemented now on a wide variety of goods and services and can create a better incentive in the short to medium term.
Shapiro’s report suggests that since taxes distort the relative prices of goods (which is the main reason why economists do not like it) it is better to “make the base of the tax as broad as possible, so its rate can be low and most people and activities are affected equally”.
Joshua Rosenau writes on his blog that the Wall Street Journal polled 60 economists and a majority backed a carbon tax as “a tax would raise the price of fossil fuels and make alternatives, which today often are more costly to produce, more competitive in the consumer marke”
Politically another tax would be tough to implement considering that it can have a direct effect in the price of some good and services, however, there is merit in exploring the implementation of a carbon tax.
As in other areas related to sustainability the EU is leading the world in the management of waste.
Environmental Management news reports that the European Parliament has voted on two waste directives. The EU Waste Directive aims to set binding targets for waste prevention for the first time, while the ‘Thematic Strategy on the Prevention and Recycling of Waste’ focuses on the long-term EU waste strategy.
The report by British Conservative MP Caroline Jackson on the proposed waste directive calls for binding targets to stabilise waste production at anticipated 2008 levels by 2012. It also calls for greater reuse and recycling to reduce pressure on landfill sites.One of the measures strongly supported by the Jackson report is the ‘five step’ hierarchy of waste treatment, with prevention most desirable, followed by reuse, recycling, energy recovery (including incineration) and landfill as a last resort. It rejects the European Commission’s earlier proposal to reclassify incineration from “disposal” to “recovery” based on energy production.
The second report, from Johannes Blokland of the Independence and Democracy Group, seeks a ‘thematic strategy’ to deal with the problem.
His report calls for a total ban on all landfill waste by 2020 and asks the European Commission to propose ways of reducing waste and to develop measures to judge progress.
