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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 3, NUMBER 3, MARCH 1990

NEWS...
GLOBAL EMISSIONS TRADING

Item #d90mar62

Global emissions trading is under discussion as a means of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. This approach would is an alternative to an international convention patterned after the Montreal Protocol, which applies to ozone-depleting substances. The U.S. Department of State prepared a report for the February IPCC meeting advocating a system that would allow each country a specified amount of greenhouse gas emissions depending on population; these emission "permits" could be bought or sold among countries. (See Science, pp. 520-521, Feb. 2, 1989, for reactions to this approach; contact Off. Global Change, U.S. Dept. State; 202-647-4269). A similar scheme is suggested in a recent report from the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (See REPORTS/GENERAL AND POLICY, this Global Climate Change Digest issue--Mar. 1990.) John Wakeham, U.K. Secretary of State for Energy, also proposed a market-based system at the World Energy Conference in September 1989 (World Clim. Change Rep., p. 17, Oct. 1989).