Pay It Forward

What can carbon markets do for economic development?

Ronald Bailey | November 15, 2006

NAIROBI—"Climate change is not just an environmental issue, as too many people still believe. It is an all-encompassing threat," declared UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the opening today of the so-called High Level Segment of the 12^th conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. During the High Level Segment, the world's environment ministers are scheduled to talk about advancing development goals in a sustainable way and about how to realize the full potential of market-based opportunities to combat climate change.

p class="MsoNormal c2"> span class="c1">To address the threat of climate change, Annan added that "the primary responsibility for action rests with individual states—and, for now, that means those that have been largely responsible for the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. They must do more to bring their emissions down." He's talking about people living in Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="MsoNormal c2"> span class= "c1"> o:p>  /o:p> /span> /p>