In the battle against global warming, a key challenge is how to get China and India--which along with the United States are major producers of carbon dioxide--committed to reducing emissions.

So says Gary Becker, 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago's graduate school of business.

Becker says the Kyoto Protocol is "fundamentally flawed" because it exempts developing countries, including the two fast-growing economies in Asia.

He was visiting Tokyo to attend an event organized by his university as part of the Global Leadership Series and give a talk with Edward Snyder, dean of the graduate school, on "Energy and Geopolitics."

The Kyoto framework, Becker said, has spurred companies in industrialized nations to relocate manufacturing bases to developing countries, where pollution controls are lax and public pressure to cut back greenhouse gases is weak.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency estimates that China will overtake the United States before 2010 as the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide.

India is currently ranked fifth after the United States, China, Russia and Japan.

One way to get China and India involved in the international coalition to fight global warming is to "bribe" them by offering economic incentives, Becker said.

The economist said one viable option would be to assign a "disproportional share of quotas" to the two countries in a system of emissions credits that can be traded worldwide like financial instruments.

In the so-called cap-and-trade emissions trading system, companies are given limits for output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They can sell their excess credits or buy from others to meet deficits.

The system would make it easier for developing countries to join forces against global warming, Becker said, stressing the importance of "starting out slowly" with whatever measure comes handy for them.(IHT/Asahi: March 31,2007)

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