Putting an accurate price on pollution is something the world has been struggling with now for decades. Getting prices to reflect environmental damage will help slow pollution by encouraging people and firms to change their behavior and shift away from activities and products that pollute the planet. Paying true prices is something we need to do if we want to keep economic development on an environmentally sustainable track.
Behind the concept of sustainable development lies a bold vision of the future, or "The Future We Want," as Ban Ki-Moon puts it. It is about the vitality of our global economy, the harmony of our global society, the nurturing of our global inheritance.
It is about laying the foundation so that every single person can flourish and reach their true potential.
Eyes on Rio
This week the world is looking to Rio de Janeiro as those of us gathered there for the Rio+20, United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development affirm our commitment to sustainable development -- the idea that we should strive for economic growth, environmental protection, and social progress at the same time.
Because standing in the way of the future we want are the environmental problems we continue to face. Climate change could lead to potentially devastating consequences down the line, especially for the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations. Look at Africa. This is the continent that contributes least to climate change, and yet suffers most from it. It is among the regions most at risk from natural disasters. It is the region with the highest rainfall volatility -- and the region that desperately needs the rain for agriculture, growth, and employment.
But environmental problems are broader than climate change. In India, for example, pollution from coal generation plants has been estimated to cause 70,000 premature deaths a year. Across the world, many of our fisheries are still being overharvested. And the delicate ecosystems in many of our forests and wetlands remain under threat.
Not everyone agrees on the appropriate policy responses to deal with environmental challenges. And that is one of the reasons why so many of us have gathered in Rio -- to keep the dialogue going, and to continue to make incremental progress toward the future we want.
While the International Monetary Fund is not an environmental organization, we cannot ignore the extensive human suffering and the misallocation of resources that leads us down the wrong path.
And where we can, we will offer help in finding solutions -- something Christine Lagarde spoke about in more detail last week at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.
What's in a price?
One area where the IMF can help to promote sustainable development is by "getting the prices right."
Getting appropriate pricing means, for example, making sure that companies and individuals pay the true cost of polluting our planet. The best way to come up with the true costs is through fiscal instruments, such as environmental taxes or emissions trading systems where governments sell pollution rights, to reflect environmental damages in the prices we pay for energy, food, driving our cars, and so on.
Getting the prices right should form the centerpiece of policies to promote green, or environmentally sustainable, development.
Because, as discussed in a new IMF guide for policymakers, fiscal instruments can help to solve two of today's most urgent challenges:
Over 90 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions remain unpriced, only a handful of cities have begun to experiment with policies charge for the use of gridlocked roads, and worldwide farmers are not charged for the marginal costs of (increasingly scarce) water resources. And in fact, many countries continue to subsidize, rather than tax, fossil fuels, even though these subsidies may do very little to help the poorest members of society who do not have cars or access to electricity.
As we push for pricing reform however, we need to think carefully about how vulnerable groups might be helped, for instance by strengthening social safety nets, or tightly focusing subsidies on products used by poorer groups.
We can and must do better. We can all be a part of the solution -- rich nations and poor nations; economists, environmentalists, and social policymakers; public sector, private sector, civil society, and international organizations. We must all come together and work together.
For in the end, we all share the same goal -- to make this small planet we call our home a better place for this generation and for generations to come.
Tax pollution. start with heavy metals, that will raise the price of fossils and nukes to pay for the damage they do.
be even more important:
STOP ALL breaks for fossils and nukes!
Why are nukes still getting 2 cents per KWH subsidies and 500M$ in breaks and protection from liability? Coal is getting even more, and oil get trillion dollars ware, while gas gets free water to contaminate and exemption from the clean waster and air acts.
Start there!
we want more rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels/energy, that's what should get help to counter the billions the fossils and nukes have already gotten over 50 and 100 years, and to keep the fossils and nuke companies from squashing green in the crib.
Name one elected official who can list most of ecosystems' "life-supporting services"? Public debate reflects the same forms of ignorance and the same worldview that produced the problems man is facing now.
We must begin to think outside that old, moldy box, spawned in the Dark Ages and the Abrahamic worldview that is killing all the reasons mankind breathes and is alive!
We need to start asking, how did mankind survive and arose to specie dominance for 99.9% of his time on the Earth without solar panels, oil, coal, agriculture, immense buildings, concrete, bricks, asphalt, all about as life giving as sustaining as the surface of planet Venus.