Latest comments posted about Ecuador’s startling oil proposal on ChinaDialogue en-gb http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1424-Ecuador-s-startling-oil-proposal- http://staging.chinadialogue.net/images/cdlogo.gif http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/1424-Ecuador-s-startling-oil-proposal- This deal could be a bargain for the rest of the world, when compared to the larger price of damage from adding to already excessive greenhouse gas concentrations. There are two clever ways to pay for this and similar deals elsewhere. 1: 'internalise externalities' by an international levy on products designed to make wasteful products more expensive and sustainable activities cheaper. 2: Adjust international GDP calculations by excluding weapons spending, which would release massive flows of funds for sustainable investments. Both of these are outlined in a paper for a NATO Advanced Research Workshop, see http://www.blindspot.org.uk/papers.html The other aspect is to take care that the payments to oil producers are recycled back into sustainable livelihoods and not into corruption. Could combine top-down investor oversight with bottom-up dialogue across Ecuador about how to invest the money in everyone's future. A similar system could be set up for wealthy Arab oil producers with the payments sustainably invested as needed globally. This would improve the current arrangement where oil prices rise and oil producers buy more military hardware. James Greyson Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:35:25 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1424#comment-4548 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1424#comment-4548 In the US, investigations by the media and the gov't have uncovered deals in which large pharmaceutical companies pay smaller ones NOT to release generic (and cheaper) versions of the drug into the market. Ecuador is pumping the oil to develop its economy, so it makes perfect economic and environmental sense to ask for compensation in return for not adding to the pool of global pollution. Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:45:42 +0000 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1424#comment-4541 http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1424#comment-4541