Keeping One Hand on the Gas Valve

Alister Doyle’s article, “Binding climate treaty may slip far into 2010”, Doyle explains a recent international treaty which is currently going through the decision process at the United Nations which aims to limit global greenhouse gas emissions by creating rules and regulations which all countries must follow. As outlined in the article, there are a number of conflicts slowing the conclusion of this binding treaty. These conflicts include the bill to pass carbon-capping laws which is also currently under review in the United States, and the conflict surrounding how the wealthier countries and poorer countries share the costs associated with the treaty.
An international treaty such as this is a perfect example of regulatory control with respect to climate change, as it regulates the amount of greenhouse gasses emitted globally by requiring the countries of the world to comply with a certain set of restrictions. The obvious major positive side to this method is that it would result in a severe reduction of the harmful greenhouse gasses emitted by our world. A negative aspect to this approach is that many countries will be forced to change the way they do such things as manufacturing for example. This could be especially hard on developing countries, because with the limited means which they are already given, changing the way such things are done could be impossible.
An alternative method which could be implemented in order to control greenhouse gas emissions is the use of economic incentives. In this method, a system could be established where a country would suffer an economic penalty per increment of emissions produced above a designated amount. Again, this has the obvious positive result of having a great chance of severely cutting global emissions. Another benefit that could be offered by this method is that it could be more efficient for poorer countries. The economic penalty could be country specific, meaning each country would have different penalty which would be suitable for them specifically (for example, Canada would have a much larger economic penalty compared to a developing country because Canada can afford it much easier.) A downside to this method is that, particularly in the current trying economic times, is that while losing money would provide incentive to reduce the countries emissions, it would also result in a lot of money being siphoned out of countries all over the world, which has the potential to create a poverty crisis.
Of the two methods discussed above, I would have to say I prefer the regulatory policy. While the strategy based around providing economic incentives would likely inspire a great deal of improvement, it is likely that it could have a harmful or even crippling effect on a country’s economy. While the problem of forcing countries to change things such as their manufacturing methods exists with regulatory control, and while this problem does have many implications for poorer countries, the treaty used in this method can take that into consideration in order to ensure that the poorer countries are treated justly.

References:

Doyle, Alister. "Binding climate treaty may slip far into 2010." Canada.com (2009). 17 Nov. 2009. Wed. 18 Nov. 2009.