Course:ECON371/UBCO2010WT1/GROUP6/Article8
'Asian Air Pollution Affecting Western States'
Website - [Unknown] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/20/cu-scientists-asian-air-p_n_429932.html
Summary
Western states of the United States of America, such as California, Oregon and Washington are noticing increased ozone levels due to air pollution from China. Like many countries, the U.S.A is working to lower and control air pollution levels, so this new addition to their atmosphere, courtesy of China, is not helping matters. Analysis by scientists at the university of Colorado have found increasing levels of ozone in the atmosphere since 1995. This is a serious problem for the public, as ozone is linked to serious respiratory problems and death of plants. Soot, mercury and carcinogenic PCBs are also often found in the pollution that floats over from China, prompting the United States to work with China and assist them to lower emissions of these chemicals. The United States have also gone as far as to consider lower their own ozone limit by 20%, to compensate for the ozone showing up from China. Scientists in the United States agree that much of this air pollution is due to increased coal burning in China because of their rapidly growing economy.
Analysis
One of the world largest countries in the world holds on one of the largest population on this planet. China has approximately over 1 billion people surviving in the competitive landscape. One of the biggest environment problem for having a large population is energy consumption. Energy is an essential aspect of life in the current society. Energy fuels our vehicle for transportation, warm our houses in the winter and many other ways. However, energy consumption is a difficult equation in a matter of a scale of a population of a billion. The question to this equation is what is efficient? There is no right answer to this question but there is only one in the mind of the many who are struggling to survive in China. Coal is an efficient and simple supply of energy. This method of producing energy is proved to be cost efficient, however it is not environmental efficient. Coal produce a large amount harmful materials that smother the air around the point of origin. In this sense, this pollution is not only staying within the boundary of China. There are aftermath of the burning of coal in the present of the outer part of China. There are reports that suggestion of a ozone depletion in the parts of North America. There are problems arising such as health issue and plant behaving strange. If this problem continues to spread, this would cause a global problem.
Social Efficiency
Taking into account all external and internal cost of air pollution coming from Asia, the accumulative impact of Asia’s growing emission rate can be predicted to cause economic losses in both continents. The marginal social cost (MSC) can be analyzed to be lower than the marginal social benefit (MSB) because both individuals living in the U.S and Asian countries are worse off by the increasing ozone layers. In order to achieve social efficiency, the U.S must continue to tighten their regulations including monitoring exports of contaminated products and to invest in technologies that could detect the level of ozone more accurately. Besides this, pollution prevention certainly needs to be addressed not only at the national level, but also internationally because pollution impact is increasingly becoming a global responsibility (not just the responsibility of the U.S to take action). At the national level, the U.S government must tighten regulations in fuel burning and to set a quota of the allowed emission level, which essentially limit the amount of pollutants. This will ensure that the negative of air pollutants are controlled, which is inevitably necessary at this point. Asian countries such as China must also cooperate and comply to meet the targeted quota, because increasing air pollution will only hamper quality of life / standard of living of Chinese population. For example, the Chinese government must focus on reducing level of excessive fuel burning (which only waste energy resources) and to focus on waste management. Internationally, both U.S and China, at some point must agree on setting strict environmental agreements by establishing multilateral environmental policy aim to decrease the total emission rate and to increase social benefits.
Prof's Comments
This is an international pollutant, and thus there is no government that can impose a regulation. This must be negotiated. Given that the pollution blows from China to the US, and that the US is not sending anything like that to China, what is the basis for a deal? The US is in a very weak bargaining position here.