The “Cleaner Gets Paid” Principle
Isabel Garcés
June, 1 2006
Spain is one of the leading countries failing to comply with the target set by the Kyoto Protocol. The emissions of carbon dioxide have increased by 38% compared to the levels in 1990. At that time, the European Union committed to reduce emissions by 8 %, and Spain committed not to increase emissions over 15%, as they were bellow the European average.
Energy policy and emissions’ control has to be change. According to the Kyoto Protocol, we can do so through the acquisition of CO2 exceed from other countries that have reduced their emissions. However, it could be realized also by calculating the absorption of CO2 through forests and vegetation.
The Kyoto Protocol established targets for countries’ emissions and created a market of emission credits to compensate the excesses by the purchase of additional emission credits. If “the polluter pays” and emission credits can be purchased, why can the cleaner not be compensated with amounts corresponding to the absorbing effect of its flora: in other words, let’s introduce a new principle: “the cleaner gets paid”.
That has been proposed in an interesting article by Jaime Lamo de Espinosa, University Professor and former Spanish Minister of Agriculture, where he explains his new theory about carbon dioxide sinks and agriculture. The author is one of the major experts of the European agricultural policy. Lamo de Espinosa emphasizes the importance of agriculture and forests in relation with the environment and proposes to take seriously their function as carbon dioxide sinks. Agriculture has an important capacity of greenhouse gas collection. The augmentation of cultivation supposes an improvement in the capacity of absorption and removal of greenhouse gases. In Europe, biomass removes between 7 and 12% of the emissions.
Actually, the big sink of carbon dioxide, which is the agriculture and forest, does not receive any compensation, and if they would disappear, the environmental situation would deteriorate. The initiative of creating a system of economic compensation is extremely important for its survival, being irrelevant whether the compensations consist of state aids or subsidies or trough the creation of a market where polluters would have to compensate farmers in the proportion of the removal of their sink.
Therefore, energy policy and control of emissions should be based on two pillars: on the one hand, the reduction of emissions of carbon dioxide, and, on the other hand, the promotion of emissions absorption through forests and plants. This would generate support and incentives to develop in a new direction the European Common Agriculture Policy, which is in deep need of intelligent models of reform.
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