Positive pricing a promising alternative to encourage transition: expert

Positive pricing is a promising alternative to encourage carbon emission reduction and transition to a greener economy, a French expert has said.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua, Jean Charles Hourcade from the France-based International Center for Research on Environment and Development (CIRED), said that taxing carbon emissions is something far more difficult to do than establishing positive pricing on carbon emission reduction.

Hourcade was in Rio this week to attend the Rio Climate Challenge, a conference organized by Brazilian NGO Centro Brasil no Clima (CBC). In the conference, experts from several countries and institutions debated the problems caused by climate change and some already ongoing initiatives to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas.

Hourcade is behind what is regarded as a promising French initiative: positive pricing of carbon reduction through bonds, which would be used to finance the transition to a greener economy. The French proposal is supported by Brazil and will feature at the COP-21 (Conference of Parties 21) -- a U.N. summit on climate change which will be held in Paris in December.

The proposal depends on countries agreeing to acknowledge that carbon emission reduction has a convertible monetary value, which is expected to be achieved in the COP-21. After that, a value for the reduction of carbon emissions can be established and the mechanisms to take advantage of this acknowledgement can be put in place.

"Instead of buying an apartment, people could buy a bond and bet on carbon value. The premise is that you have to redirect these investments of the upper middle class, so that they put their money on that, and not on pure speculation," Hourcade said. Endi