hi all , my question is more specific than the global cost of pollution.
In fact , one of the solutions for reducing the co2 in the atmosphere is to use technologies based on the adsorbtion of co2. I wanted to know what would be the cost of such an operation for the World .
On the other hand , what would be the impact on the world economy to reduce the co2 by limiting the gases emissions ( sorry for my english ..) . I think that resolving those two questions would be a key to understand the environmental policy problem.
Thanks by advance
I know that some economical studies in Canada made about CO2 reduction pointed out that the costs of it would be around 0,01% of our PIB the first years, then drop near 0% of it and eventually give a positive income after a while. This truly disrupted the argument that said that it would ruin the economy to protect the environment...
With progressive measures such as a carbon market, protecting the environment might even prove to be paying. I can hardly understand those who oppose economy and ecology, which are so related together that it would be quite hard to separate them...
I'm thinking out loud. "1. Run a global multi tegion, multi sector Computable General Equilibrium model. Assuming a carbon tax imposed in only developed countries. There is a cost to the economy associated with the imposition of tax. However, the gain is on the human health side. May be gain in labor productivity. 2. Run another scenario where all region/countries imposed carbon tax. In this scenario, my guess is that it might be true that economies of the developing world will suffer. Then there is the question of price increase associated with the imposition of carbon tax. Who will bare the burden? Will it be the high income households, or will it be the average imcome households. Or will it be the low income household?"
Then let us ask this question. To which type of voters or household do politicians get their votes from? Different region will have different answer. Hence I believe the lack of political will to protect the environment.
Another point when we talk about reducing co2 is that government cannot spend money to created or buy technologies to reduce co2. They can only encourage trough incentives or taxes on businesses or households so that the economy will move in certain direction.
We have to be very carefull in the process of takeing out pollution from earth. The planet is in a quasi equilibrium state in wich the opacity of the pollution is cooling the earth, and at the same time the greenhouse effect is warming it up. As the two effects almost cancel out, if we take out one of the effects without attending the other, we could be in great danger.
I don't think the cooling effect of pollution is enough to offset its toxic effects. We'd be far better off without pollution than with pollution.
Incidentally, the IPCC global warming scenarios often have developing nations as being the ones hardest hit by global climate change effects. Though they are not in a position to do much about global warming, they, as always, will bear the brunt of its damage. Developed nations should have the physical and financial infrastructure to absorb costs associated with climate change.
