Air Pollution
An average normal individual breaths over 3,000 gallons of air each day. You could survive for weeks without food and days without water, but only a few minutes without air. Breathing polluted air is a slow but sure way of poisoning the body. Air pollution is a universal problem It can lead to countless allergic reactions, irritations, and diseases. In the United States, there are about 30 million individuals diagnosed with asthma. Asthma is an allergic reaction triggered by pollutants and small particles carried by polluted air. The effects of air pollution are also very destructive to the environment. Acid rain, a by product of air pollution through the integration of pollutants in the water cycle damages trees, plants, animals, poison bodies of waters and is very corrosive to buildings, and stone and metal constructions.
The economic impact of air pollution cost countries and businesses billions of dollars each year. From health care cost, damage to agriculture crops, to compliance on national and international regulations on air pollutants emission the impacts of air pollution on the economy are very significant.
In 1970, The United States Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and passed to law the Clean Air Act. The EPA is the nations leader in environmental science, research, education, and assessment of environmental conditions directly related to pollution in general. Its mission is to protect human health and the environment . The Clean Air Act, which was last amended in 1990 s, is the authorization of EPA for its actions on protecting and improving the nations air quality and the stratospheric ozone layer. The Clean Air Act set standards on air quality, vehicles emission, industry emissions, and the protection of the ozone layer. Compliance to the standards of the Clean Air Act had cost different industries billions of dollars, forcing other companies to close or to outsource.
Environmental Regulations
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) develops guidelines and regulations which have to be used in guiding industries and businesses to ensure that they do not pollute the environment through engaging in any emission of harmful compounds and gases into the atmosphere (Hasbrouck, 1995). Should any given business generate excessive wastes that are hazardous, the requirement is for the company to be involved in cleaning up the areas, or paying people to clean up the environmental contamination the company has caused due to its past manufacturing processes (Shi Jane, 2006). This ensures that all the businesses operating in the United States put necessary monitoring mechanisms in their methods of manufacturing and production so that pollution can be control. Therefore, these laws are very necessary in making every business responsible on the safe of the environment.
With all the existing Business Laws today, the goal has been to come up with measures in ensuring that all trading operations are never in anyway harmful to the environment. Depending on the issue being discussed, business law will apply differently. With air pollution and business, the law requires that all the companies producing toxic wastes to the air have to cut down the quantities emitted so that the air quality is not affected. If this is not done, the necessary measures have to be taken so that these companies and manufacturing firms adhere to the laws. The other important thing is that the materials and commodities produced have to be harmless to both the environment and the consumer (O Neil, 2001). The whole essence of business law is in ensuring that there are legalities that will be considered and addressed by existing industries and anyone planning to start any form of business.
Although in the past few years the issue of pollution and environmental conservation has not been highlighted in this law, a number of countries like the United States have been able to successfully introduce the aspect of environmental conservation within its business laws. There has been great progress in major areas in the United States, but the overall protection of the environment still has been costing the nation a lot of money and resources. From 1970 to 1996, there was a record-breaking drop in air pollution by about 33 percent, while at the very time the country s population was growing at about 30 percent. Although water and air quality have been on the improvement, in late 1990s, over 69 million people were still living in states that were not meeting the EPA standards. (Newman Schauffler, 2006).
The applications of the Environmental Acts in the United States have covered all the States in the country and require all the counties to be reviewing and assessing the quality of the air in the areas frequently. Should there be some organization not meeting the requirements, the necessary course of action and fine is taken against this organization.
Being one of the major carbon emitters in the world, a number of countries and environmentalists have been calling for the country to cut down its carbon emissions in order to address the issue of climatic change (Frangos, 1999).
Carbon Trading
Carbon Trading (also known as cap and trade) is a worldwide market proposed by the Kyoto Protocol as a solution to global air pollution. In carbon trading, each country participating receives a limit on the carbon emissions they are allowed to produce. Countries (andor companies) may buy and sell the emissions limits assigned to them. It is an attempt to reduce overall carbon emissions while still allowing companies that may have difficulty doing so to have an outlet for transition.
The United States as a whole is not currently bound to participate in international carbon trading (President George Bush did not sign the treaty). Though at present there are 10 States that are active in emission trading through the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The ten states participating inRGGI -- Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont -- are implementing the first mandatory cap-and-trade program in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. California on the other hand, is the only State to be granted full autonomy (through the Clean Air Act) to regulate its own emission standards and participate in carbon trading.
The adoption of Carbon Trading by the Federal government as a solution to air pollution has been a subject of many debates. Many claim that the last amendments to the Clean Air Act are not enough to regulate the emissions of pollutants to the atmosphere. They are strongly suggesting that the government must adopt the carbon trading scheme. Those who oppose the schemes are saying that it does not offer a solution rather only a slowdown on the pollution of the air breath. They are suggesting that the government should impose Carbon Tax rather that adopting Carbon Trading.
What Experts Says
Robert N. Stavins, PhD, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program
The environmental effectiveness of a domestic cap-and-trade system for climate change can be maximized and its costs and risks minimized by inclusion of several specific features. The system should target all fossil fuel-related CO2 emissions through an economy-wide cap on those emissions. The cap should be imposed upstream, that is, on fossil fuels at the point of extraction, processing, or distribution, not at the point of combustion. The system should set a trajectory of caps over time that begin modestly and gradually become more stringent, establishing a long-run price signal to encourage investment in emission-reducing technology. It should adopt mechanisms to protect against cost uncertainty. And it should include linkages with the climate policy actions of other countries.
With this statement, the impact of carbon trading on energy power plants using fossil fuels is clearly being stipulated. It will be impossible for energy power plants to control their green house gas emission on their continued operation. Implementing carbon trading will mean that this industry will need to buy emission limits. The cost will directly impact the cost of utilities consumers pays. If this happens the marketability of renewable energy source (e.g. solar energy, thermal energy) will be a strong option to energy producers. Since renewable energy power plants will definitely produce low pollutants the goal to achieve clean air will be realize.
Fossil fuel consumption of cars and motor vehicles in general will still be an issue. It is common knowledge that asides from big industries, the area of transportation is one of the biggest contributor to green house gas emissions.
David Schoenbrod, LLB, Trustee Professor of Law at New York Law School, and Richard B. Stewart, LLB, John Edward Sexton Professor of Law at New York University School of Law
As a candidate for president in April 2008, Barack Obama told Fox News that a cap-and-trade system is a smarter way of controlling pollution than top-down regulation. He was right. With cap and trade the market decides where and how to cut emissions. With top-down regulation, as Mr. Obama explained, regulators dictate every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and often-times is less efficient. ...
A cap and trade can be used to tackle carbon emissions more efficiently than top-down micromanagement of technology.
This is in direct regards to EPA regulations. With carbon trading, industries can make their own decisions regarding on how they can minimize their green house gas emissions. They have the options to buy emission limits and continue with normal operations or employ better technology to lessen their pollutants output and sell their emission limit.
With Carbon Trading industries can play the flexibility of the scheme at their advantage. They have the option to study the best cost effective way to protect their interest and comply to the standards set by the scheme. Unlike specific government regulations, industries are in a way force to comply with the laws that always posed disadvantage to their interest.
Ralph Nader, LLB, former US Presidential Candidate and Founder of Public Citizen, and Toby Heaps, President and Editor of Corporate Knights magazine.
If President Barack Obama wants to stop the descent toward dangerous global climate change, and avoid the trade anarchy that current approaches to this problem will invite, he should take Al Gores proposal for a carbon tax and make it global. A tax on CO2 emissions -- not a cap-and-trade system -- offers the best prospect of meaningfully engaging China and the U.S., while avoiding the prospect of unhinged environmental protectionism.
China emphatically opposes a hard emissions cap on its economy. Yet China must be part of any climate deal or within 25 years... its emissions of CO2 could amount to twice the combined emissions of the worlds richest nations, including the United States, Japan and members of the European Union...
Cap-and-traders assume, without much justification, that one country can put a price on carbon emissions while another doesnt without affecting trade or investment decisions. This is a bad assumption...
With China s economy continuous growing at an accelerated rate, it is one of the top countries in the world introducing the biggest amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. Like the United States, China is not bound by the Kyoto Protocol regarding carbon emission.
This statement also stipulates one of the disadvantage of Carbon Trading. There is no existing framework on the structure of global trading, making the market volatile and unpredictable. The global scale in trading will also be a problem for small industries that do not have the capacity to trade internationally. The cost of means to minimize carbon emission will also be a burden to small businesses. In this sense carbon trading will only benefit big companies.
James E. Hansen, PhD, Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Earth Institute
We must put a price, a rising price, on carbon emissions.
There are two competing ways to achieve that price
One is Tax 100 Dividend tax carbon emissions, but give all of the money back to the public on a per capita basis...
The alternative to carbon tax and 100 dividend is Tax Trade, foisted on the public under the pseudonym Cap Trade ...
...parties support Cap Trade because they hope to profit it is a give-away to special interests, who feel, based on extensive empirical evidence, that they will be able to manipulate the program through their lobbyists
The worst thing about cap-and-trade, from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren...
The Unites States carbon trading market is estimated to be worth 1 trillion annually by 2020 (Gunther, 2008). This is one of the reasons why both local and international organizations involved in carbon trading are pushing that this scheme be implemented by the Federal government.
Another issue of carbon trading is that it is not a permanent solution for air pollution. The growth in population will have a direct effect in the operation of companies. An increase in demand for a certain industry will mean that it must operate for longer times and will definitely disregard its emission limits. The prospect of fossil fuels being replaced by renewable energy will also be slow process. It will not be enough to make a significant change on the current air pollution problem.
Nicolas Loris, Research Assistant at the Heritage Foundations Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, and Ben Lieberman, JD, Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundations Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies
Cap and trade is nothing more than a massive energy tax
The goal of cap and trade is to drive up the costs of energy in order for people to use less of it
The alleged benefit from cap and trade is that the regulations will reduce carbon dioxide emissions enough to slow warming and reduce global temperatures
The price of energy generated using fossil fuel will definitely go up if carbon trading is adopted by the government. Power plants will have no choice but to pass to their consumers the cost of buying emission limits. The point of concern here is the availability of renewable energy. If power plants using fossil fuel decides to foreclose will the current renewable energy power plants be enough to support the country
The benefits and disadvantages of Carbon Trading should be closely studied by the Federal government before they consider adopting it to the country s policies. Carbon trading could be a solution to stopping air population. But the sustainability of the scheme is still in question. The Carbon-Trading market also needs to be studied. The governments involved should established parameters on how to market carbon emissions. They must provide clear outlines that will guide the market, and must provide equal opportunities to small and big companies.
We need stopcontrol air pollution now It should be a responsibility for each one of us to maintain the quality and cleanliness of the air we breathe.
Carbon Trading is a possible solution that the government can adapt. The economic impact of the scheme should be thoroughly studied before deciding to implement it. The Federal government can also apply the same policy it has given to California. The issues on air pollution will be the responsibilities of the States. This will alleviate the burden of law diversification, and policies can be easily studied on each State.
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