Get Invoved with WCTM:
Pollution Doesn’t Stop at Borders

Pollution Doesn’t Stop at Borders

There is an international flap over the European Union’s law that imposes pollution fees on airline flights landing or taking off in Europe based on the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted during the entire flight. If the law is enforced, a Chinese airline flying from Frankfort, Germany, to Beijing, China, will be required to pay fees for all carbon dioxide emitted, even while its plane was thousands of miles beyond Europe. America, China, and some other countries have objected, and they are talking of coordinated retaliation if European authorities start enforcing the law.

The dispute raises basic questions of national sovereignty and of a nation’s right and actual power to impose fees calculated to reduce polluting activities, even the pollution happens beyond its borders, and even when it is caused by non-citizens. European authorities say the EU acted unilaterally because of the lack of progress towards effective international actions to reduce global emissions. From the European point of view, it’s a bit like the environmentalist’s tale of the tragedy of the commons: one player’s efforts to be a good conservative will be swamped if everyone else gaily continues to put huge volumes of waste into our shared air. Earth has only one atmosphere, and wind currents carry air pollution from any one source to countries and people far away.

I have heard the argument many times that it’s not worth the economic costs to reduce American air pollution because China’s pollution is increasing, and so global greenhouse gas levels will grow quickly whatever America does. I have no easy answer. National sovereignty is a problem when we deal with an array of natural systems, the air and the oceans, which do not respect national borders. I applaud the European effort to put fees on airline travel which reflect the full environmental impact of a flight’s greenhouse gas emissions. We are obviously a long way off from effective catholic solutions, but as the Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”


No comments yet.

Add a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Subscribe to Newsletter