Putting a price on carbon is the best solution for climate change - Essay Example

e provisions for the trading of emissions at the international scope was introduced by the Kyoto Protocol and despite the expiry of this protocol, carbon trading is set to continue (Newell, Pizer & Raimi, 2013). Underpinning the need for carbon pricing is because most countries have no costs associated with the polluting activities and sources and that currently, there are no limits to the amount of pollution that nations can discharge into the atmosphere (World Bank Group, 2014). Therefore, carbon pricing can act as the regulatory mechanism for controlling the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions from all countries around the world.

Some of the most common methods for putting a price on carbon include carbon taxation and the cap-and-trade approach (Grubb, 2012). The cap-and-trade approach involves the government setting up caps on emissions from a particular pollutant, for instance CO2, from a group of pollutants like power plants while carbon tax is the fee imposed on greenhouse gas pollution especially from fossil fuels (Hood, 2013). Thus, the aim of this research is to support that statement that argues that putting price on carbon is the best solution to climate change by encouraging the adoption of cleaner energy sources that are more efficient, cost-friendly and environmentally friendly.

Though carbon pricing is being focused on as the solution to climate change, critiques believe that this is an ambiguous decision by the developed countries to escape the responsibility of being the major pollutants and share the costs with other countries that emit fewer greenhouse gasses (Jenkins, 2014). Some non-governmental organisations argue that carbon pricing is creating carbon markets that will give the stakeholders the right and permit to pollute. Besides, a handful of civil societies, Carbon Trade Watch included, have on many occasions criticised the establishment of carbon markets because they barely reduce greenhouse gas emissions at their sources and this