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Carbon costs should be included in the retail price of products and services
Current version: 08 Dec 2009 | 16:46 | nadia999
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No, because... Carbon costs would cause an economic slowdown in a recession prone economy
Preventing deforestation to create farmland would be one of the goals of adding in carbon emissions. While food production does create a lot of carbon emissions it also reduces carbon emissions, essentially all food that comes from plants also soak up C02 as they are growing, this would need to be taken off the CO2 cost that is added on.
Essentially this would encourage agriculture that is more efficent, i.e. more vegetarian based rather than producing meat. Which is something that has to happen anyway. And would discourage producers from sending their food long distances, particularly by plane as a lot of food travels at the moment. This would mean the developed world would need to give up on the idea of having all kinds of fruit and veg all year round.
Also it should be noted that the title does not include the word 'all' in it. This implies that there could be some products that are not included, and goods that are vital for survival such as providing clean water, food, and medicines are likely to be excluded.
Terms like Rich, Poor, etc. are not defined economically and vary from nation to nation. A person considered poor in one nation, might actually be defined as middle class, or well off in another. Hence generalizing the terms would be unfair especially for developing nations.
Secondly, the area of human enterprise affected the most by climate change and global warming is food production from the agricultural sector. It is ironical that food production contributes significantly to global warming through deforestation for agricultural land and other processes. Now consider this scenario, dwindling agricultural production due to climate change is escalating the price of food crops all over and making them increasingly inaccessible to the common masses.
Adding a carbon cost to them would be highly idiotic. Secondly in an economy recovering from recession, the enhancement of cost of goods would badly affect the recovery, because simply put, when things get expensive, most people buy only the essentials .
As an alternative I propose carbon concessions in products that are carbon sensitive. This shall be achieved through tax rebates from the government and greatly help green entrepreneurship in the world economy.