[en] The health and environmental impacts of fossil fuel consumption are of increasing concern to countries in the Pan-Japan Sea region, where economic growth has led to increased energy consumption in recent years. Economic instruments like green taxes and emissions-trading schemes represent important tools to help reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. Over the past several years, OECD countries have made progress in the use of economic instruments to reduce atmospheric air pollution. In Europe, new environmental taxes have been used most extensively, while in the United States market creation and emissions-trading schemes are more common. In the Pan-Japan Sea region, there has been considerable experience with pollution charge and levy systems, including the longstanding Japanese sulfur levy and the Russian and Chinese pollution charge systems. Generally, tax and emissions-trading systems are only beginning to emerge in the region although China has been experimenting with SOx emissions-trading schemes for several years now and South Korea and Japan have already begun experimenting with CO2 emissions-trading schemes. Only Japan has seriously looked at a carbon tax to curb GHG emissions among the four countries while direct subsidies for cleaner technologies have been adopted in the different Pan-Japan Sea countries. The costs and benefits of different economic instruments like taxes, charges, emissions-trading schemes and subsidies vary from case to case because they all have to be financially feasible, rest on informed and competent public institutions and perform effectively in local market and economic conditions. On top of all these is the fact that their overall success depends on their political acceptability. Given the experience of Pan-Japan Sea countries with economic instruments so far vis-a-vis the lessons learned in OECD countries and the nature of current and emerging pollution problems in Pan-Japan Sea countries, future measures to curb atmospheric emissions could include: differentiating vehicle and fuel taxation to support the market for cleaner fuels and vehicles; raising pollution charge rates in countries like China and Russia so that the charge systems could have a greater impact on market behaviour and build on the experience with charge systems in those countries; expanding the SOx emissions-trading system in China to lower emissions and lessen the threat of acid rain regionally; and engaging the emergent lessons from Japan and European countries in exploring the application of carbon taxation in the wider region to reduce growing GHG emissions