----- Original Message ----- From: "Paul Baer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Paul - I would be interested reading the article. I work on climate change policy, and PPP-adjusted income figures are one of the indices used for comparison of development levels in the context of obligations to reduce GHG emissions. (we use them ourselves, absent anything better for our purposes.)
Paul, I must say that - with all due respect to your excellent work on critique of industrial society - this is just one reason there is growing concern about the contraction/convergence strategy. If systemic bias enters PPP calculations (overestimating Third World GDP), the idea of giving everyone a notional per capita amount of carbon emissions is dubious. The idea of codifying the right to pollute - intrinsic to any emissions trading framework, even one designed by progressives like yourself - is also kind of scandalous, in conceptual and practical terms.
In Durban, South Africa, this is especially poignant as the fight heats up over a World Bank pilot for the awful Prototype Carbon Fund.
As Kyoto comes into force on Wednesday, it's important for all progressive economists to express concern over the abuse of emissions trading gimmicks. This is, really, about the privatisation of the air. Let's work to stop it.
Cheers, Patrick PS: I find the most devastating crit of PPP measures to come from Alan Freeman (Ken Livingstone's economic advisor), including a chapter in the new book he coedited with Boris Kagarlitsky, The Politics of Empire (Pluto Press).
