It was in 1974 that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in the name of fairness in international competition, advocated the principle of "the polluter pays," hoping that polluting companies in countries around the world would add the social costs of creating pollution in their production costs.
一九七四年，石油輸出國家組織為使各國貿易競爭更公平，提出了「汙染者付費」這一名詞，希望不只是少數國家，而是所有國家的業者都能在生產成本中，加入這種因汙染造成的社會成本。