But what about the flip-side – penalising those who get it wrong environmentally? According to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, international law on polluter liability needs strengthening. Current problems include identifying who the polluter actually is, and what specific damage has been done.
On the same theme, the OECD has been looking at green taxation – how to stop us polluting before we have started, and failing that, to make us pay for the damage that we do. Germany and Denmark have done well with their green taxes, but France’s carbon tax was a dismal failure, discarded after only two years.
And finally, what will be the price of the International Energy Agency’s prediction that global carbon dioxide emissions could rise by 70% by 2030? Not as much as you’d expect, according to new research by NASA that blames soot for far more climate change than it has so far been credited.
Kind regards
Helen André
Editor