14 DAY TRIAL // The current official method employed by governments worldwide against carbon emissions is called cap and trade, a procedure that basically sets a certain amount of carbon for each country to generate within a year. But, as a by-product of the Kyoto protocol, several major powers, including the European Union and the United States, began trading caps, a sector of commerce that now totals about $65 billion a year.
The Kyoto protocol is different from all other environment agreements that came before it, in that it not only encourages states to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but it also commits them to this action. The convention is only applied to the years between 2008 and 2012, and its main purpose is to yearly reduce the carbon emissions of top-industrialized countries by 5 percent, in reference with the carbon levels recorded in 1990. The European Union and other 37 countries were among the first to sign, but by 2005, more than 182 other parties had already ratified the agreement.
But now, U.N. official Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, says that these measures are not enough to regenerate the environment. As he sees it, implementing carbon taxes is the only viable option to help reduce pollution output at an individual level. Refineries and other mass producers of fossil fuels need to be the primary target for this tax, and not the end-users. According to official estimates, the tax will directly affect the automotive industry, the main source of carbon dioxide emissions today.
While it may be a serious inconvenience to people used to traveling by car anywhere, it's the only feasible option in reducing the current amount of carbon in the atmosphere. However, it's very likely that lobby groups worldwide will oppose this initiative, as some very powerful interests are in danger of being eliminated. The U.N. nevertheless believes that the Kyoto protocol needs to be replaced with a more drastic approach to the issue of global warming.