Global Environmental Protection - Solving the International Public Goods Problem by Empowering the United Nations through Cooperation with WTO

• Main Authors: Po-Ting Liu, 劉柏定
• Other Authors: Yew-Kwang Ng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/69846618503095461010

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 經濟學研究所 === 89 === A significant, if not the major, part of the environmental protection is worldwide in its effect. Deforestation, global warming and many other forms of environmental disruption affect the entire globe and even threaten the very survival of all human beings. On the other hand, the world consists of hundreds of independent countries and regions. Therefore, an important problem in the protection of the global environment is that of the free-rider or public-good problem as manifested at the international level. Pursuing its own interest, each country, state, or region, has insufficient incentive to safeguard the global environment. This insufficiency applies to both the amount of charges/fines imposed on environmental disruption and to the amount of abatement (of environmental disruption), protection, and restoration/improvement spending. This thesis proposes a solution to this public-good problem by enriching the United Nations with sufficient fund to subsidize abatement and empowering it with sharp enough teeth (through cooperation with the World Trade Organization) to penalize non-compliance, including the failure to contribute the proposed higher contributions to the United Nations.