To be sure, the pre-market studies contributed to knowledge about the problem of concern, but, ironically enough, they made actual market implementation far less imperative. Similar considerations will likely emerge as international pollution rights trading programs are pursued. Once a reasonably defensible model of efficient CO 2 emissions trading outcomes is available, however, the attractiveness of ever building a functioning carbon market is substantially reduced. Armed with an understanding of how nations would sell and buy carbon rights if allowed to do so, global negotiators may achieve much more, at less political cost, to negotiate for and impose cutbacks based on market simulations rather than gamble global trading might someday comparable results. Enlightened policy must recognize and respond to such opportunities as they emerge.
Environmental controls are typically highly regressive.
The few studies that have seriously examined the relative burdens imposed by major environmental programs demonstrate that large-scale programs burden poorer families and households much more than others. Marginal cost differentials for various mitigation options, moreover, are inescapably a function of the political power and wealth of the affected communities. Well-organized, influential, and richer societies can insist on domestic rules and constraints that drive up pollution costs in the regions they inhabit. Market-based systems will naturally exploit these differentials and locate less desirable emission activities in areas where the affected population is least able to protest. There is a growing suspicion among many less advantaged groups and nations that environmental concerns in general address relatively slight risks that may matter to a privileged few but divert attention and resources from more pressing matters with far more significant health and ecological consequences.