According to the World Devolopment Movement,  the average Briton by midnight last night, January 8th, was responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the average citizen of the world’s poorest countries in an entire year.   Primarily, this fact reflects the enormous differences in wealth between average citizens in rich and poor countries, and the fact that greater prosperity usually results in greater emissions.   As newly-industrializing countries such as India, China and Brazil continue to have economic growth, however, we are likely to see their per capita emissions rise while those of the developed world fall.

Meanwhile, the British PM, Tony Blair, is reported today to have said that it was unrealistic to expect ordinary people to change their holiday habits, and to fly less.  Well, we agree — that, after all, is why economic incentives, such as those arising from cap-and-trade mechanisms like the ETS, are needed, so that the social costs of activities like flying are fully borne by those who undertake them. (So that externalities are internalized, in the jargon of economics.)

Technorati Tags: carbon emissions, cap-and-trade, ETS

This entry was posted on January 9th, 2007 at 10:55 (GMT) and is filed under Forecasting & Modelling, Policy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.