Stephen A. Lawrence writes: > http://www.ledevoir.com/2005/04/16/79517.html > > Now, if Canada can do this, presumably other industrialized nations can > do it too -- in which case the whole treaty seems like a pointless > exercise.
This would not work because the number of "pollution credits" available is strictly limited, and the numbers should be scheduled to decline year by year. Buying and selling pollution credits sounds like a nutty idea, but in fact when the system is properly administered, and number of credits is carefully calibrated, this method works remarkably well. It is the most cost effective and rapid way to reduce pollution. This is a good example of free market capitalism working the way it should work, to everyone's benefit. Usually, a country or corporation which buys credits is already pretty clean. I expect Canada falls in this category. Because Canada has already deployed advanced technology, further reductions in Canada would be relatively expensive, so they buy credits instead. Other countries which are far behind can make large improvements for comparatively small amounts of money, so it makes more sense for them to reduce pollution instead. In fact, it is so easy for them to make progress (because their equipment is obsolete and inefficient), they can reduce pollution even more than their quota demands, and they can sell the extra improvements to Canada. (In this case, by "pollution" I mean CO2.) - Jed
