The present world is driven by consumption and production. In our world, we continue producing things, we keep consuming things and the never ending cycle keeps getting bigger and bigger. Every year, more goods are produced than the year prior to that. With all the production and consumption, there is bound to be a lot of waste that obviously needs to be disposed off. With all these things happening in the world, it is pretty evident that a lot is happening in terms of environment degradation; the most important of all being air pollution. You see, every activity somehow or the other leads to environmental degradation. This is obviously a growing threat to the whole world as a result of which various different countries have been trying to analyze the matter and look into it more seriously than before. This is where the idea of carbon trading comes in. Carbon trading, as suggested by the name, is a mechanism that has been developed in order to ensure that the world’s problem of rapid environmental degradation via air pollution is minimized. This post will discuss the concept of carbon trading, its advantages, it’s drawbacks and will tell you about how this mechanism works.
Carbon trading is basically giving each country a quota of the maximum amount of carbon dioxide that they can produce. Above that level, there are heavy fines. In such a case, there may be countries who normally do not need all that quota of carbon dioxide; countries that are already environmental friendly. Such countries can then ‘sell’ their quote to others who are willing to get a larger quota due to their required outputs. This way, since there are monetary elements involved, countries generally tend to produce less carbon dioxide than they would do so otherwise. It helps countries come forward to join hands against the problem of environmental degradation.
There are environmentalists, however, who believe that carbon trading is not a feasible option. They believe that It does not control the problem of air pollution; rather it serves as a mechanism to attach monetary value to yet another natural resource; air. Some environmentalists even believe that carbon trading does not reduce carbon dioxide production but actually enhances it and increases the overall levels of carbon dioxide that are emitted into the atmosphere every year!
There are also several other problems associated with this method. For example, it only targets industries. There are many other sources of air pollution as well. In fact, even if you are surfing the internet to get youtube views, your activity is causing carbon dioxide to be released into the air. A simple Google search uses up resources too, you know!
However, at the rate at which environmental degradation is taking place, there may be no option but to engage in carbon trading if we want to save our planet from being destroyed completely; not only for our own selves but for future generation to come who simply cannot survive unless we take some action today.