Study: Market-Based Incentives Not Blanket Solution

The Environmental Protection Agency has a number of tools
to get industries to clean up pollution. Market-based incentives have become more popular over the last decade… but a new study warns that officials should be careful how they use this approach. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

The Environmental Protection Agency has a number of tools to get industries
to clean up pollution. Market-based incentives have become more popular
over the last decade, but a new study warns that officials should be careful
how they use this approach. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca
Williams reports:


Market-based incentives include pollution permits that companies can buy and
sell. Businesses like these approaches because they’re more flexible than
strict caps on emissions, and they cost less.


A recent study in the Natural Resources Journal reviewed the market-based
incentives that have been used to date.


Researcher Gloria Helfand says these approaches work best with global or
regional pollutants.


“If it goes up into the atmosphere, it will affect everywhere pretty much
the same. The classic example of this is climate change carbon dioxide
emissions. It doesn’t matter who produces carbon dioxide, everywhere in the
planet we’re going to feel the effects of it.”


Helfand says market-based incentives don’t work with pollutants that
concentrate around local communities, where it matters – which company
cleans up.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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