Air Pollution and Its Threats - Case Study Example

Please write the of the department here) Assignment on Air Pollution and It’s Threats Written By: XYZ Word Count: 2006. Badly ventilated caves gave human a chance to experience the dangers of air pollution. And the era of air pollution invaded ever since then, which has continued on without a pause. The variety of the sorts of environmental pollution has ranked from minor to major since the earth, in itself, is a pollution purifier. A major addition to the air pollution has bee cause by the industrialization of societies and the foreword of vehicles that use motors. The reason also has been the sudden expansion of population. The need of hour is that we find a way out and fight against this issue to clean up the air we breathe: A statistical view of green house gases emission is as follows: B (Down since 1990 - Greenhouse gas emissions, UK, 1990 - 2003) Trends: As a basis of Environmental Accounts between the year 1990 and 2003, the overall downfall of greenhouse gas emissions collapses 8.1 percent that is, 786.3 million to 722.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. However, there has also been an increase in the greenhouse gas emissions which was about 1.6 percent (in 2003). Electricity generators are held responsible for this increase in the emissions. As far as the gas, water, and electricity companies are concerned, a fall in the emission of greenhouse gases has again seen. It ranges from about 218.6 million tonnes to 192.6 million tonnes from the year 1990 to 2003. The core cause is said to be the excessive use of natural gas instead of coal. However, underlying data show the altitude of greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity generators has augmented in current years. Emissions mounted 6. 7 per cent on the previous year as a result of the larger use of coal for production and a fall in the net level of electricity introduced via the inter-connector with France. Greenhouse gas emissions comprised 25.4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation in 2003 after dropping in 1997 to a low of 20.9 per cent. Greenhouse gas emissions from the mechanized industries fell from 180.7 million tonnes to 129.3 million tonnes from 1990 to 2003, which is about a fall of 28.5 percent. On the other hand, emissions rose by 3.0 per cent from a low of 125.5 million tonnes (2003 and 2002). The recent increase replicates an increase in emanations from the metal making industries. The downward trend was more or less subjected to exceptions. For example, the emission of greenhouse gases from the transport and communication industries was 48.4 percent more than in 1990 that in 2003. The transport and communication industries were accountable for discharging, in 2003, the counterpart of 95.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide evaluated with 64.5 million tonnes in 1990. Their greenhouse gas releases rose 5.2 percent on 2002, largely reflecting the progressing rise in the number of UK owned ships subsequent the introduction, in 2000, of the UK Tonnage Tax. Obligations of the UK --- met or not? According to the British scientists, greenhouse gases are at the maximum background levels ever traced in the atmosphere. Also, that stabilising the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) will be tougher, because a warming world will generate feedback mechanisms. According to their report, the UK crosses the international target for cutting the greenhouse emissions by 2000. Scientists will be needed to find more efforts to carry out to reduce the emissions. The Global Atmosphere Research Programme 2000-2002 is a report which was published but the Dept. of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (which is also known as Defra). The report contains the result of the research of Defra mostly on climate alteration and stratospheric ozone based on the research of a UK Research Centre for Climate Prediction. On the launch of the report, the Environmental Minister of the UK, Michael Meacher, said that this report does exhibit that the UK is making good attempts to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions. He also said that this report does also demonstrate that the UK more than met our target under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to bring back the emissions to 1990 levels by 2000, and that the UK is on track to exceed Kyoto Protocol target of a 12.5% score in emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2012. Optimal amount of pollution: If economic deliberations were not seized into report, the socially optimal level of pollution would be zero.  This is because no pollution would correspond to no cost to the general public.  The finest point of pollution is the point that subsisted earlier than the industry lifted it.  The environment logically pollutes the height it needs to survive. From an economic perspective the socially optimal level of pollution occurs when the marginal benefit of the last unit of pollution exactly equals the marginal cost of pollution.  At this point the net advantages to society are maximized.  If all of the externalities of pollution are reported for, the effecting level of pollution will be optimal. Curbing pollution and other negative externalities entails both costs and benefits. The best policy is to curtail pollution until the cost of further abatement just equals the marginal benefit. In general, the marginal cost of abatement rises with the amount of pollution eliminated. (Following the low-hanging-fruit principle, polluters use the cheapest cleanup methods first and then turn to more expensive ones.) And the law of diminishing marginal utility suggests that beyond some point, the marginal benefit of pollution reduction tends to fall as more pollution is removed. As a result, the marginal cost and the marginal benefit curves almost always intersect at less than the maximum amount of pollution reduction. The intersection of the two curves marks instead the socially optimal level of pollution reduction. Of pollution is curtailed by any less than that amount, society will gain more than it will lose by pushing the cleanup effort a little further. But if regulators push beyond the point at which the marginal cost and benefit curves intersect, society will incur costs that exceed the benefits. The existence of a socially optimal level of pollution reduction implies the existence of a socially optimal level of pollution, and that level will almost always be greater than zero. Government’s measures against pollution Will government remedies to global warming be inferior than global warming itself? Bear in mind that man-made global warming is a negative or depressing externality that happens when burning fossil fuels give out carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Economists describe negative externality as an overflow from an trade and industry operation that harms parties not straight engaged in the transaction. In this case, the carbon dioxide augmented into the atmosphere is perceived to be increasing temperatures, raising sea levels, and having other consequences on the climate that people must unwillingly pay to become accustomed to (more air conditioning, switching crops, and so on and so forth). Thus, goes the quarrel, the price of fossil fuels does not imitate the full cost of using them.   Ideally, consumers, businesses, governments, and other international agencies can only make use of the policies to keep the burdening costs low, once the man-mad global warming is assessed. The two policy options normally discussed are cap-and-trade carbon markets and carbon taxes. The concept behind carbon markets is that governments measure how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are expelled by setting up an overall limit on emissions. Emitters are then necessitated to have a government-issued consent for each ton of carbon dioxide they let go into the air. The whole amount of permits cannot go beyond the limit. Emitters that need to add to their emission allowance must purchase permits from those who emit less, making a market for carbon dioxide emissions permits. The purpose of this sharing scheme is to generate a market that sets a cost on the negative externalities inflicted by burning fossil fuels. Alternatively, there are some revisions that propose the profits of early sheer reductions in carbon emissions will far overshadow the costs. A 2006 study by British economist Nicholas Stern establish that expending 1 percent of GDP per annum to attain massive early reductions in carbon dioxide emissions is warranted. Stern has at the present increased his approximation to 2 percent per year. A lot of economists disagree that Stern used an unrealistically low price cut rate of 0.1 percent to achieve his results. A 0.1 percent price cut rate entails that someone would give up $100 today in order to obtain $100 ten year from now. There is absolutely no objection in calling synthetic global warming a negative externality for which the transaction charges way beyond the limit. This can also be interpreted as: the advantages or profits gained from the attempts of trying to alleviate the global warming will rather be flooded by the costs of dispensing the corporate welfare used to acquire the political ad biased compliance of different industries. As much as one may desire to execute good public policy to covenant with the crisis, policy abnegation will be the only rational gesture in return to the global warming. Kyoto Protocol: tradable emission permits. --- A good idea? Economists have long supported the exercise of market-based policies to attain environmental objectives. These policies comprise taxes on the firms’ waste emissions, and programs in which the government bounds pollution by issuing emission permits that can be operated among firms. Market-based looms let firms to decrease pollution at shortest cost, unlike command-and-control directives that spell out which technology firms must use. In addition, a study by the Congressional Budget Office (2000) proposes that if grandfathered permits were used to decrease carbon emissions, low-income domestics may be worse-off by numerous hundred dollars per year at the same time as wealthy domestics could be better-off by around $1,500 per year. Grandfathered permits fashion premium gains for shareholders, who are strenuous in high-income clusters, because such policies give out a precious asset (sellable permits) to firms free of cost. There is no premium gain to well-to-do domestics under auctioned permits or emissions taxes; as a substitute, the government achieves revenues that can be reprocessed in tax diminutions that profit all and sundry or unreasonably supports the poor. Policymakers are at present discussions suggestions to put into practice on a national scale tradable permit curriculums for nitrogen oxide and mercury, and to make stronger the subsisting stipend trading curriculum for sulfur dioxide. Certainly, as of its distinction in offers that cope with climate change, the tradable permits move toward prepared is now getting a grand deal of consideration all through the world as a potential tool for supervising greenhouse gas emissions. Conclusion Using auctioned permits or emission taxes instead of grandfathered permits enjoys immunity on both economic and distributional grounds. Primarily concentrating on the efficient-use of revenues, that is, utilizing the mode of distortion taxes rather than patronizing spending projects which benefits all, such as stressing on broad income tax reductions instead of cuts in estate tax. However, employing grandfathered permits appears safe considering the sulfur-trading program despite some drawbacks mentioned therein. As I see it, a system of appropriate grandfathered carbon permits, would be preferable to nothing. This too that Tradable permits use refined production methods, which liberates our incoming generations from fossil fuel dependency. Bibliography Office for National Statistics, 2005. Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Available at: http://www. statistics. gov. uk/cci/nugget. asp?id=901 [Accessed 15 April 2010] Socha, Tom. 2007. Air Pollution Cause and Effects. Available at: http://news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/sci/tech/2749097. stm [Accessed 15 April 2010] Environmental Economics, 2005. Socially Optimal Pollution Levels. Available at: http://www. env-econ. net/2005/12/socially_optima. html [Accessed 15 April 2010] The Nets Biggest Free Essays Library. The Kyoto Protocol: Advantages and Limitations. Available at: http://www. free-essays. us/dbase/d4/lvw157. shtml [Accessed 15 April 2010] Reason Foundation, 2009. Is Government Action Worse than Global Warming? Available at: http://reason. org/news/show/is-government-action-worse-tha [Accessed 16 April 2010] Parry, I, 2002. Are Tradable Emissions Permits a Good Idea? Washington, D. C: Resources for the Future. Bernanke, B, 2004. Principles of Microeconomics. Chine: The Mc-Graw Hill Companies, Inc. Read More