A sustainable future in an increasingly connected and technologically advanced world must have low greenhouse gas emissions. Industries must be regulated to reduce industrial waste and foster healthy marketplace competition. Because of advancements in technology, satellites or ground-based sensor networks can be used to provide information on greenhouse gas emissions from both the sky and the Earth. They may either replace or assist human regulators. The use of technology would be better than human tracking due to the potential for human bias or human inaccuracies. This data should also be decentralized and transparent, accessible to all regulators.
Industrial production accounts for nearly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions.1 A primary goal for sustainability should be to find methods to regulate emissions from industry while fostering healthy market competition. One such solution has already been tried: the ‘cap-and-trade’ system formulated under President George H.W. Bush in 1990, which capped sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions and is now used in the European Union, China, and the United Kingdom, among many more.2 Cap-and-trade systems garnered over $74 billion in funds in 2023.3 In a cap-and-trade system, the government of a country sets a cap on the total emissions in a particular industry and gives companies emissions credits, which permit companies to pollute based on their credit holdings. Companies are then allowed to trade those credits among themselves. The cap-and-trade system is useful, as it combines a sustainable climate policy with a competitive market policy that benefits sustainable companies and funds climate conservation efforts using revenue from high-polluting companies. However, changes must be made to the system. Firstly, different countries have different caps for companies’ emissions, which leads companies away from restrictive-cap countries to emission havens and reduces compliance worldwide. Global administration would eliminate inconsistency and ensure equitable treatment across countries. An international body such as the UNFCCC could monitor emissions and report on global and national emissions. As mentioned previously, technology should be used to monitor and report greenhouse gas emissions transparently. Secondly, some credits are auctioned,4 which allows larger companies to circumvent the regulatory system. This disadvantages smaller, possibly more emission-efficient companies. Credits should only be granted based on past performance, and companies should only be allowed to buy credits on the market. However, political resistance to this idea, as seen in resistance to the Paris Agreement, could delay and dilute this measure. Economic incentives could help reduce the risk of such obstacles, but they would not be entirely eliminated. With these changes, the cap-and-trade system would be the most efficient solution, and consequently, it is argued that such a system should be adopted globally.
The previous paragraphs show the necessity of an international cap-and-trade approach to sustainability with certain modifications to create a sustainable future as described above. This essay expresses hope that such a solution could address local, national, and global issues and deliver the sustainable future that the world urgently requires.