But Will the Planet Notice? How Smart Economics Can Save the World
Many European nations rank far ahead of the United States in renewable energy, pollution control, and energy conservation, according to Environmental Defense Fund economist Gernot Wagner. He attributes this lead to one factor: market incentives. European governments instituted policies that made clean energy development more cost-effective to use than status-quo fossil-fuel energy.
In But Will the Planet Notice?, Wagner calls on officials in every country to emulate Europe and work with its markets to enact “smart” regulations that guide market forces in the direction of clean energy and resource conservation.
Wagner spells out many examples of such regulations, such as cap-and-trade systems and taxes on gasoline and airline flights.
The key is to reward innovation while making unsustainable practices more costly. Governments that carry out such programs effectively will not only cut pollution and greenhouse-gas emissions, but they will also, more fundamentally, create market environments where companies compete to be more sustainable, energy industries race to offer the most-productive renewable-energy systems, and countries vie with each other to be the leading exporters of clean, renewable electricity.
Officials will have to decide carefully what standards to set and how quickly to push industries to meet them. Moreover, they will have to set a careful balance between development and environmental conservation, the author advises. Time is of the essence: We have, at most, 10 years to cut carbon-dioxide emissions to sustainable levels before disastrous climate change sets in.
Wagner’s But Will the Planet Notice? sets an ambitious conservation agenda for the public and business sectors to team up to achieve. The potential payoff of success is clearly vast. Earnest professionals in both government and industry will find stimulating ideas to consider and maybe carry out.
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