[pf] try#5; World's Richest Nations (the OECD) Urge Green Taxes

In Try#1 I said:

· This post is mainly to see whether people have stopped posting, or
whether, as Gary Barrett said to some of us, when he sends a post it never
appears, either sent to him by e-mail, or on the Topica positive-futures
webpage (which is currently unreadable, I can confirm as of 4:30 a.m.
Sunday +1200).   D.

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Now Try#5 (after 3:59 a.m. Mon.) :-

http://ens.lycos.com/ens/apr2001/2001L-04-09-03.html
  is: 

World's Richest Nations (the OECD) Urge Green Taxes

PARIS, France, April 9, 2001 (ENS) - Industrialized countries should launch
a coordinated program to remove environmentally damaging subsidies and
introduce environmental taxes, according to a new report by the
organization that represents the world's richest countries. 

The Paris based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) is urging the removal of subsidies and introduction of green taxes
"to prevent irreversible damage to our environment over the next 20 years,"
the OECD said in a statement. 
The call comes in a major review of key environmental challenges to 2020,
to be considered by OECD environment ministers May 16. 

Only with such widespread use of economic instruments will it be possible
to tackle the more complex, interrelated and international environmental
problems of the future, says the organization which groups 30 member
countries that produce two-thirds of the world's goods and services. 

A wide range of different types of policies will be necessary, but to
ensure cost effectiveness economic instruments should play the
"predominant" role, OECD environment director Joke Waller-Hunter told
reporters before the study was launched on Thursday. 
"OECD Environmental Outlook" identifies the key environmental challenges
for industrialized countries over the next two decades using the traffic
light system. In this, environmental pressures, environmental states and
society's responses are classified as red light, yellow light or green
light issues. 

The main conclusions were finalized over a year ago. What has been added
since then, according to Waller-Hunter, is a series of policy simulations
designed to show whether and how red light issues such as:

 - deteriorating groundwater quality -

 - greenhouse gas emissions -

 - local air pollution - and

 - rising waste generation -

      can be tackled and how much it would cost. 


The red lights:


** Three-quarters of marine fisheries are fished to their limits or
over-fished. 

** Tropical deforestation continues at alarming rates. Non-OECD regions
will lose another 10 percent of their forests by 2020. 

** Human-induced climate change already affects weather patterns worldwide.
This will worsen as OECD CO2 emissions increase by a projected one-third to
2020.

** Urban air quality and associated health problems are deteriorating in
many OECD countries. 

Energy use and transportation are already the main contributors to
greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Motor vehicle use in OECD
countries is expected to increase by 40 percent to 2020, passenger air
kilometres to triple, and energy use to increase by 35 percent. 

Municipal waste generation is expected to increase substantially in OECD
countries to 2020. 

In most OECD countries groundwater is polluted, largely by farm chemicals.
By 2020, nitrogen loading of waterways from agriculture will increase in
OECD countries by more than one-quarter.

Persistent and toxic chemicals will be widespread in the environment,
seriously affecting human health. 

Overall, environmental damage is responsible for two to six percent of
disease in OECD countries. 
The policies suggested to address these urgent red light issues draw on
lessons learned from environmental success stories, including "green
lights," such as the virtual elimination of ozone depleting CFC emissions,
the removal of lead from petrol, the expansion of protected natural areas,
and significant increases in the efficiency of resource and energy use. 

But in many cases, efficiency improvements have failed to counter total
increases in the environmental pressures caused by rising consumption and
production levels, the OECD report says. "More stringent policies are
needed to ensure that environmental degradation is de-coupled from economic
growth," the report urges.
 
 Computer simulations conducted for this report showed that removing
subsidies in OECD countries and applying an energy tax linked to the carbon
content of fuels and taxing all chemicals could lead to 15 percent lower
OECD carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 than would have been the case in 2020
under business as usual assumptions. 

There would be nine percent lower SO2 emissions, three percent lower
methane emissions, and 30 percent less run-off of nitrogen to waterways
from agricultural chemicals. 

  - The economic costs of implementing this package of policies would be
almost negligible -
                     with projected Gross Domestic Produce in OECD
countries in 2020 less than one percent lower than under a business as
usual scenario. 

The OECD Outlook is available online at:
http://www.oecd.org/env/outlook/outlook.htm 

The OECD member countries are listed at:
http://www.oecd.org/about/general/member-countries.htm 

© Environment News Service (ENS) 

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David.
(David MacClement) davd@ihug.co.nz 
http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html#top
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