I've long been an advocate of rich nations paying poor nations to reduce their emissions, even though in the back of my mind I've always worried about the unitended consequences. This new article in the NYT brings them to light in a very disturbing way. In international nature conservation there is always the potential for poor nations to blackmail rich nations with the "if you don't pay us $X (where X is much greater than the true value of the resource) we'll destroy this resource" and now I'm thinking that this perverse incentive structure may be at work with all sorts of green development mechanisms regarding emissions. More and more I'm thinking a carbon tax and lots of investment in R&D in energy efficiency that is then put freely into the public domain may be a better course. I'm still not sure. Climate change is a serious challenge. Thoughts?
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December 20, 2006
Problems With Emissions Trading
Posted by J.S. on December 20, 2006 at 10:44 PM in Climate Change | Permalink
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Who Knows What Willingness to Pay Lurks in the Hearts of Men? A Rejoinder to Egan, Corrigan, and Dwyer
by John C. Whitehead, Econ Journal Watch, 14(3): 346–361, September 2017
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