Sunday

28th May 2023

Nobel laureates propose global CO2 tax

While the international community struggles to reach agreement on how to further tackle climate change at a meeting in Bali, former US vice president Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to increase knowledge about the effects of human activities on global warming.

"We have a window of nearly seven years, said IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, who accepted the prize on behalf of the panel in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

"The time to doubt science is over", he said, adding that by 2015 at the latest green house gasses must start declining if the world is to escape a climate catastrophe.

Thousands of scientific experts have worked on the panel since 1988 and brought forward more and more evidence of human activities causing climate change.

Experts estimate that 20 percent of greenhouse gases alone comes from raising animals for human consumption.

When asked what he does on a personal level to fight climate change, Mr Pachauri said he wears warm clothing, is a vegetarian and takes care to limit his use of electricity.

Meanwhile, Mr Gore said that "the threat of climate crises is real, rising, imminent and universal" in his acceptance speech before over 400 prominent Norwegians and leading members of the climate panel.

Mr Gore and Mr Pachauri, an Indian scientist, are going directly from the celebrations in Oslo to join the Bali conference.

"We need to complete a bold mandate there next Friday [14 December] that calls for a visionary treaty to be completed, ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – more than two years sooner than presently contemplated" Mr Gore said.

He said that world leaders must meet every three months until such a new treaty is completed.

The 2007 Nobel laureates also suggested a price on CO2 pollution "so that the markets can help us make rational decisions about how to sharply reduce it".

"The problem with CO2 is it is completely invisible to the economy", Mr Gore said.

"I'm strong in favour of a CO2 tax - a large one, with the money raised given back in a progressive repay. If you want to cut your tax, you cut your pollution," he said.

But he said he did not think the UN would be "capable" of managing such a tax.

In around six months China is expected to pass the US and become the world's largest CO2 emitter.

"Both countries should stop using each other's behaviour as an excuse for stalemate", Mr Gore said.

"We have everything we need to get started, save political will, and political will is a renewable resource", he said.

The Nobel prize for 2007 is worth 10,000,000 SEK. ($1.5 million) and has been awarded since 1901, often to people having ended conflicts and war, such as Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk in 1993 and John Hume and David Trimble in 1998 for finding a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.

But in the past couple of years, people preventing conflicts and working for sustainable development have been awarded.

"It is a long time since the committee was concerned with such fundamental questions as this year", the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Ole Danbolt Mjøs said in his speech to the laureates.

EU and US at loggerheads over climate change

The EU and US have clashed at an international meeting in Bali to discuss ways to tackle climate change, with Europe threatening to boycott a key environment meeting next year if Washington does not show greater committment to cutting greenhouse gases.

Opinion

How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon

The EU led support for the waste management crisis in Lebanon, spending around €89m between 2004-2017, with at least €30m spent on 16 solid-waste management facilities. However, it failed to deliver.

Investigation

Europe's missing mails

How the EU Commission and national governments delete official emails and text messages — creating areas of decision-making without oversight and control.

MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024

"This will be the first time a member state that is under the Article 7 procedure will take over the rotating presidency of the council," French Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the key lawmaker on Hungary, warned.

Opinion

How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon

The EU led support for the waste management crisis in Lebanon, spending around €89m between 2004-2017, with at least €30m spent on 16 solid-waste management facilities. However, it failed to deliver.

Latest News

  1. How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon
  2. EU criminal complicity in Libya needs recognition, says expert
  3. Europe's missing mails
  4. MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024
  5. PFAS 'forever chemicals' cost society €16 trillion a year
  6. EU will 'react as appropriate' to Russian nukes in Belarus
  7. The EU needs to foster tech — not just regulate it
  8. EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Sustainable Finance CentreJoin CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, 15 – 19 May 2023, high-level event for finance & business
  2. ICLEISeven actionable measures to make food procurement in Europe more sustainable
  3. World BankWorld Bank Report Highlights Role of Human Development for a Successful Green Transition in Europe
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic summit to step up the fight against food loss and waste
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersThink-tank: Strengthen co-operation around tech giants’ influence in the Nordics
  6. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us