MIM Notes 193 
September 1, 1999

England expects pollution-profit windfall

by MC5

A consultant at Oxford University in England says that England may 
receive more than a $1 billion annual windfall thanks to 
pollution-rights sales.

The energy industry opposes a tax on energy consumption to favor 
the environment. However, energy capitalists' reception of the 
idea of pollution-rights trading is more favorable.

Relative to the United $tates, European countries take the Kyoto 
climate change summit of 1997 seriously. The European countries 
have agreed to reach emission-reduction goals based on where each 
country was in its own environmental progress at the time.

Governments that have an easy time getting their industries to 
meet pollution goals will see their countries profit from selling 
their pollution-rights called "trading in emissions" or simply 
"carbon emissions." If a government exceeds its goals or meets 
them ahead of schedule, then that country can sell its unused 
rights to pollute to other countries. Countries that are above 
their treaty-agreed upon levels of pollution have to buy the right 
to pollute from other European countries. The intention is to put 
a capitalist-style incentive on not polluting.

The Oxford consultant named Ilex says that some countries will 
have an easy time making profit, because they have not tried very 
hard to cut pollution yet and cutting their pollution is easier 
than in other countries where the green movement has had more 
success.

MIM sees the pollution-rights trade as one dividing into two. The 
proletarian and forward-looking aspect is that the sale of 
pollution-rights occurs because of scientific planning regarding 
physical targets -- reduction of carbon-emissions. The 
acknowledgement of such a goal by imperialist governments comes 
about only because of proletarian pressure. Whether the traders 
know it or not, they are not operating according to a "free 
market," but according to goals scientifically analyzed and then 
politically arrived at during the 1997 Kyoto summit.

On the other hand, in its negative and bourgeois aspect, 
pollution-rights trading only emphasizes the fact that we live in 
a capitalist system where the right to kill other people with 
pollution is essentially bought and sold. Corporations may have to 
pay lawyers high amounts of money or they may have to buy their 
emissions rights from other corporations, but in the end, the most 
exploitative and profitable companies will be able to conduct the 
trade in carbon emissions. Such is only possible because there is 
no guaranteed "right" to a livable environment in an 
environmentally sustainable economy under capitalism. The 
bourgeoisie believe its property "rights" are above the so-called 
rights of others to eat, sleep under a roof and even breathe. 
Carbon-emission trading is an agreement amongst the bourgeoisie 
that those capitalists who pollute less should have an economic 
advantage over others that pollute more.

When the capitalists cannot support an absolute stance regarding 
the preciousness of humyn life, they only demonstrate why class 
struggle has been violent -- on their part and in response by the 
proletariat. The proletariat has the right to see to its survival, 
through violence as necessary. Deaths from pollution are not 
hypothetical; neither are profits from pollution.

Note: Financial Times 3 August 1999, p. 8.