Greenpeace campaigner Lisa Bunin expresses the horror many environmentalists feel towards the concept:

This approach appears like a thinly veiled scheme to privatise air using 'marketable permits.' Industry simply does not have the right, nor should it ever be given the right, to make money off our air. Air is a part of nature that is priceless&emdash;it is essential to all life on earth. It must never be allowed to be quantified or traded by industry over the heads of communities, nor should industry be allowed to bribe communities into consenting to allow them to do so. … In my view, it is a highly offensive and dangerous program that should be eradicated at the earliest opportunity. (Memorandum to Roger Wilson, Greenpeace, 1 July 1991, p. 3)

Similarly, Richard Ayres, chair of the US National Clean Air Coalition, argues that trading in emission rights 'takes a public resource and turns it into something that can be traded as if it were property'. Others dislike the inherent assumption that a certain amount of pollution is acceptable. They question how a system of marketable permits will ensure a decreasing amount of pollution each year, since gains made by some firms will be negated by others buying up those gains so they can put out more pollution. The only way that pollution will be decreased each year is if pollution rights are reduced. However, firms are not going to take part in banking and trading their 'credits' if their pollution rights are reduced each year (Thompson 1990, p. 51).

There is also the question of how localised pollution will be prevented, since some firms, those that buy up the pollution rights, will be putting above- standards emissions into the environment. What is to stop some neighbourhoods getting more pollution while others get less? Bunin suggests that such trading is likely to disadvantage poor communities who will find the air quality in their neighbourhood goes down as wealthy people negotiate and buy high air quality above their own heads.

Another objection to trading emission rights is that it tends to protect very polluting or dirty industries by allowing them to buy emission rights rather than meet the standards. In this way, trading can reduce the pressure on companies to change production processes and introduce other measures to reduce their emissions. Some environmentalists argue that it is preferable in the long run for firms that cannot make the environmental grade to go out of business and make way for other firms that can produce substitute products in a cleaner way.

Also, emissions trading seems to work in favour of existing firms and against new firms wanting to set up. In order to establish itself, a new firm must buy up enough pollution rights to cover its emissions, or the government must increase the amount of rights available and give the new firm an allocation. Existing firms may be unwilling to make room for the new company and, if the government increases the rights available, pollution levels will increase.

Opponents also argue that emissions trading sends the wrong signals. It sends the message that it is the polluters who should decide what trade-offs should be made between economics and environmental quality. Regulators, sensitive to the environmentalists' concerns about inalienable rights, have tried to avoid talking about emissions trading in terms of property rights, or tradeable emission permits or even pollution quotas. That is why they use terms such 'emission reduction credits' and 'offsets'.

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