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前蘇聯王朝的勤奮努力
作者David Helvarg, 11.11.99
美國以市場機制解決環境問題的方法，往往看起來有點像你曾在前蘇聯宣傳影片裡看過的畫面。
真正的前蘇聯宣傳片
我們來進行排放交易吧。藉由這個系統，『我』，一個邪惡的資本家，賣給另一個邪惡資本家的『你』，排放大量骯髒空氣的權力。我可以這麼做，因為我製造的二氧化硫或是其它的污染皆低於法定容許標準。在你為了這些骯髒空氣付錢給我後，你就有權讓我住在你工廠下游的女傭小孩得到肺氣腫。
然而，最近我卻在一個前蘇聯附庸國的各個地區裡，發現一個更為有效、更為人道，而且以減少污染之做為基礎的市場機制。相信我，這並不是在開波蘭人的玩笑。
在共產主義垮台的十年後，波蘭人之企業家精神，正在帶領其經濟欣欣向榮。他們開始施行一種清除污染系統，我稱之為"付費與處罰"。
這些美國工廠煙囪正在向波蘭人乞求清洗
透過這個系統，該國內所有企業的工廠，都必須從其運轉成本中付出一小部份比例的金錢，以做為使用國家自然資源的代價。除此之外，若是工廠的污染排放超過法定標準，就必須罰款。所有的錢都由環境部的基金來管理，這些基金會再貸款給設立較乾淨、較環保技術的公司。若是這些技術達到其環境目標，並且按時繳款，則該公司只須清償50%的貸款。
與身為新聞記者的同事一同在波蘭旅遊時，我很驚訝的看到『蛙跳效應』（編譯者注）在前蘇聯時代就已經聲名狼藉的的污染工廠上產生作用，例如位於Krakow外的Nova Huta鋼鐵製造廠，以及佔地600英畝的Palavay化學工廠
雖然，大部分的Nova Huta工廠，都因為沒有效率以及高毒性而必須關閉，但是其中的一部份透過環境基金的貸款，已自義大利購得最先進的冷鋼壓模廠。
又冷又硬的鋼
Palavay化學工廠利用它的貸款，來設計並建立工廠煙囪清洗器，現在已經開始賣給西歐的工廠。同時，也從用氯的產物來漂白紙張 (會產生副產物－戴奧辛)，轉變成為較環保的過氧化氫系統。
一個最近的國際貨幣基金報告指出，波蘭的付費-處罰系統，是世界上對抗污染最有創意的方法之一。善於外交的波蘭人指出，美國仍然是創造新的環保技術的領導者。我們在發展市場誘因來推動環保技術更新上面，創意仍嫌的不足。
波蘭人並不是在取笑我們。好吧，我的波蘭新聞記者同事之一，告訴我一個關於美國的笑話。話說波蘭人到了紐約……。不過，也許這個笑話並不適合放在家庭電子刊物裡面。
David Helvarg是一位記者與作家，以國際記者中心的講師身分旅行到波蘭。他的下一本著作，藍色的國境：為拯救美國尚存活的海岸而奮鬥。將會在2000年，由W.H. Freeman出版。
原文與圖片詳見: http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/
mainevent/helvarg111199.stm
版權歸屬Earth Day Network，環境信託協會 (黃曉菊 譯，李欣哲、王鴻文審校) |
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Industrious endeavors in the former Soviet empire
by David Helvarg 11.11.99
America's market-based solutions to environmental problems tend to look a lot like something you might have seen in an old Soviet propaganda film.
Real Soviet propaganda.
Take emissions trading. Under this system, I, an evil capitalist, sell you, another evil capitalist, the right to spew tons of air pollution, which I can do because I've produced less than the legal limit of allowable sulfur dioxide or other filthy emissions. After you pay me for these surplus dirty air credits, you have the right to give emphysema to the children of my maid, who live downwind from you.
Recently, however, I discovered a far more effective and humane market-based system for reducing pollution -- developed in a former Soviet client state, of all places. And, believe me, this is no Polish joke.
The Poles, whose entrepreneurial spirit is driving a booming economy a decade after the fall of Communism, have come up with a pollution cleanup system I call "payments and penalties."
These American smokestacks are begging for a Polish scrub.
Under this system, every industrial facility in the country pays a small portion of its operating costs for use of the nation's natural resources. In addition, each facility pays fines if it pollutes above the legal limit. All this money goes into a fund administered by the Ministry of the Environment. This fund in turn makes loans to companies that want to install cleaner, greener technologies. If these technologies meet their environmental goals, and if the company makes its payments on time, it only has to pay 50 percent back on the original loan.
Touring Poland with fellow journalists, I was amazed to see the leapfrogging effect this has had on infamous Soviet-era polluted industrial sites like the Nova Huta Steel Works outside Krakow and the 600-acre Palavay chemical plant.
While much of Nova Huta had to be shut down because of its inefficiency and poisonous impacts, part of it now contains a state-of-the-art cold steel press plant, bought from Italy with one of these environmental loans.
Cold, hard steel.
The Palavay plant used its loans to design and build smokestack scrubbers that it is now selling to Western European factories, and also to convert from chlorine production for paper bleaching (which generates dioxin as a byproduct) to a more environmentally benign hydrogen-peroxide system.
A recent International Monetary Fund report found that Poland's payment-and-penalty system is one of the most creative anti-pollution initiatives in the world. The Poles, being diplomatic, point out that the U.S. is still the leader in terms of creating new green technologies. It's just that we haven't been very creative in developing market incentives to promote them.
Still, the Poles are not about to make fun of us. Well, one of my Polish journalist colleagues did tell me the American joke about the Pole who comes to New York ... but, er, maybe that one's not appropriate for a family
e-zine.
David Helvarg is a journalist and author who traveled to Poland as an instructor for the International Center for Journalists. His next book, Blue Frontier: The Fight to Save America's Living Seas, will be published by W.H. Freeman in 2000. |
