Environmental Policy Versus The Economy Essay Research

Environmental Policy Versus The Economy Essay, Research Paper

Environmental policy versus the economy

It is in the ring set up by greedy corporations and enviro tree huggers where the top card is the economy versus the environment. To help gain support, the economy yells, .The Green groups may decry economic growth, but it is growth itself that makes environmental protection possible and popular.pollution is as old as human activity, but only recently have we been rich enough to worry about it..10 On the other side, we have .Putting pollution controls in place-or even preventing pollution in the first place-sometimes saves businesses money..1 .It.s not a question of jobs versus the environment. There will be no jobs left on a dead, scorched Earth..2 While the government tries to satisfy both sides, neither the environment nor the economy seems to really be winning.

Trying To Change

In June of 1992, most world countries and a vast array of private organizations gathered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. This .Rio Conference. represented a major international effort to address the common environmental term: sustainability. Sustainability was understood as being able to maintain a continuing progress that does no further damage to the ecosystem.

At the Rio Conference, two main international agreements were made: First, a convention to cut down emissions that creates global warming. President Bush agreed to sign this after prudent objections. Second, a convention to protect biodiversity, President Bush refused to sign this, making the United States the only major state not to accept the biodiversity treaty.5 Later on, President Clinton signed the treaty and reversed the United States position.8

The convention to protect biodiversity was a perfect example of how the developed countries resisted strong language in the treaties. This was done because with an already powerful economy, the more flexible terms would better ensure no restrictions that would really effect their economy. This clarifies how much power the business industry has over politics. While the president was at the summit to help sustain the environment, he never let the pressures of an abundant economy slip his mind. His argument for the United States concerning biodiversity was that he objected to the protection of endangered animal and plant species because it did not provide a patent protection for U.S. biotechnology firms.4 President Bush virtually stood alone when he had objections with the treaty for protection against global warming. He agreed to sign only after .references to binding targets and timetables were dropped in favor of a more general pledge to reduce the emissions of gases that cause global warming..8 Both the public and world leaders alike criticized the President for letting reelection issues to dominate policy.

What the Rio Conference did do for the United States is it helped educate people on some lesser-known issues and made the environment popular again. The expanded and heightened public attention placed a greater emphasis for environmental concerns in America.s foreign aid program. With this came arguments that giving more effective environmental aid does not necessarily mean giving more money.3 Some say that large aid flows do not solve the problem, but perhaps make it worse. Their controversial suggestion is less but better aid.

United State.s progress in helping other nation.s environmental issues has been very sluggish. Even after several years have passed since the Rio Conference, there still has been little done by the wealthier nations to assist poorer countries in developing environmental safeguards. Some reasons for there being such slow progress in environmental foreign aid issues is that foreign aid itself has been a common target for cutting federal spending.3 Still others want to exclude environmental aid arguing that .in addition to furthering U.S. security interests, foreign aid should be restricted to stimulating private trade and investment..9

Closer to Home

Another source of controversy is the Bush administration.s 1990 Clean Air Act amendment. The amendment was designed to halt the spread of acid rain that threatened the survival of lakes, rivers, and forests. This meant that utilities would be granted transferable allowances to emit sulfur dioxide in proportion to their current emissions level.10 Then, all facilities that still polluted more than its allocated amount would have to buy emission allowances from someone who was polluting under their requirements. The theory was that the companies that were able to reduce emissions for less than their credits were worth could then sell them at a profit. Those companies that continued to fail to stay under emissions requirements would have to keep buying credits at a steadily increasing price. Now, companies essentially had the ability to buy and sell the .right. to pollute.10

One main problem with this program from the beginning was that the amendment included many rules for extensions and substitutions. One writer against this amendment states that .With reduced emissions now a marketable commodity, the range of possible abuses may grow considerably, as utilities will have a direct financial incentive to manipulate reporting of their emissions to improve their position in th