Economist Michael Greenstone proposes carbon pricing condition for climate damage payments

University of Chicago economist Michael Greenstone proposed in a forthcoming book that rich countries should make unencumbered climate damage payments directly to citizens in developing nations, contingent on those countries adopting carbon pricing.

Greenstone noted that 82 per cent of future carbon emissions are projected to occur outside the OECD grouping of wealthy industrialised nations.

Highlighting market-based pollution control methods, Greenstone pointed to the Surat Emissions Trading Scheme where compliance reached 99 per cent among participating textile plants under strict enforcement and fines.