Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Carbon emissions taxes
A number of countries have already taken steps to adopt these. For an examination of
them and their welfare effects see Cornwall (1997). The prospects of a widely practised
global carbon tax is some way off. At the time of writing the EU looked close to setting
carbon taxes designed to stabilize emissions at the 1990 level by AD 2000.
Tradeable emissions quotas
Tradeable emissions quotas (TEQs) (marketable or auctionable permits or tradeable
emissions permits) have been applied in a number of countries. In the USA they
have been used for control of air pollution emissions for over a decade, and in France
to control water-borne effluent since 1969 (Owen and Unwin, 1997:402). There has
been considerable interest in the use of TEQs for dealing with transboundary

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atmospheric pollution, especially carbon dioxide emissions (for coverage of TEQ
developments in the EU see Koutstaal, 1997).
The 1997 Kyoto Climate Change Agreement has established a TEQ ‘club’
(Canada, Japan, USA, Russia) which will trade emissions permits among its
members—in effect, the USA and Japan have first rights to any permits offered by
Russia. This has left the EU to bear the burden of emission controls but saved
negotiations from collapse (New Scientist 18 December 1997:10).
Energy use taxes
Tax on vehicle fuel, domestic power supplies and household heating fuel can be
used to discourage excessive consumption. The cost of vehicle fuel in the USA is
still three to four times less than it is in Europe, so there is scope for taxation. Energy
taxes encourage efficient use and change to non-polluting alternatives, but could be
unfair to countries with less scope for the latter (such as those lacking hydroelectricity
or already committed to coal or oil).
Green funding
Funding and aid agencies are increasingly focusing on environmental management
and sustainable development (Rich, 1986; Turnham, 1991; Feitelson, 1992), and
they also check for risks, such as contaminated land, before supporting developments
(Kopitsky and Betzenberger, 1987).
The Global Environmental Facility (GEF), launched in 1990, is a corporate
venture between governments of industrialized and developing countries. The GEF
is jointly managed by the World Bank, UNDP and UNEP to assist developing countries
to tackle globally relevant environmental problems such as climate change; loss of
biodiversity; management of international waters; and stratospheric ozone depletion.
The GEF is targeted at poorer countries and involves NGOs in identifying, monitoring
and implementing projects. There were efforts in 1992 at the Earth Summit to increase
the profile of the GEF. Criticisms include the complaint that donors to the GEF have
simply cut back on other aid to finance it; that participation is not open enough or
wide enough; and that some developing countries want poverty alleviation included.