The book provides an integrated analysis of the implications for the energy system from adapting to meet climate change targets and analyses the role of improving energy technologies for the world and the EU markets. The first part of the book sets the stage for the analysis by presenting the European and World economic and energy outlook. The second part examines the policy options available for controlling greenhouse gases in the period to 2010. Over such a relatively short period, the role of technology lies mostly in making possible the more efficient use of energy. Finally, the third part of the volume examines the longer term role of technology in the context of a case study for the power generation sector.

Climate technology becomes more and more relevant in international environmental policy negotiations. At the Kyoto conference binding emission reduction targets have been established for several regions of the world. The major challenge is how to realize these reduction goals with minimum costs without generating new distributional and social difficulties. The book analyses the macroeconomic structural and distributional impacts of greenhouse gas mitigation strategies for the EU and the member states.

Solving the global climate crisis through local partnerships and experimentation Global climate diplomacy—from the Kyoto Protocol to the Paris Agreement—is not working. Despite decades of sustained negotiations by world leaders, the climate crisis continues to worsen. The solution is within our grasp—but we will not achieve it through top-down global treaties or grand bargains among nations. Charles Sabel and David Victor explain why the profound transformations needed for deep cuts in emissions must arise locally, with government and business working together to experiment with new technologies, quickly learn the best solutions, and spread that information globally. Sabel and Victor show how some of the most iconic successes in environmental policy were products of this experimentalist approach to problem solving, such as the Montreal Protocol on the ozone layer, the rise of electric vehicles, and Europe’s success in controlling water pollution. They argue that the Paris Agreement is at best an umbrella under which local experimentation can push the technological frontier and help societies around the world learn how to deploy the technologies and policies needed to tackle this daunting global problem. A visionary book that fundamentally reorients our thinking about the climate crisis, Fixing the Climate is a road map to institutional design that can finally lead to self-sustaining reductions in emissions that years of global diplomacy have failed to deliver.

With the effects of climate change already upon us, the need to cut global greenhouse gas emissions is nothing less than urgent. It’s a daunting challenge, but the technologies and strategies to meet it exist today. A small set of energy policies, designed and implemented well, can put us on the path to a low carbon future. Energy systems are large and complex, so energy policy must be focused and cost-effective. One-size-fits-all approaches simply won’t get the job done. Policymakers need a clear, comprehensive resource that outlines the energy policies that will have the biggest impact on our climate future, and describes how to design these policies well. Designing Climate Solutions: A Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy is the first such guide, bringing together the latest research and analysis around low carbon energy solutions. Written by Hal Harvey, CEO of the policy firm Energy Innovation, with Robbie Orvis and Jeffrey Rissman of Energy Innovation, Designing Climate Solutions is an accessible resource on lowering carbon emissions for policymakers, activists, philanthropists, and others in the climate and energy community. In Part I, the authors deliver a roadmap for understanding which countries, sectors, and sources produce the greatest amount of greenhouse gas emissions, and give readers the tools to select and design efficient policies for each of these sectors. In Part II, they break down each type of policy, from renewable portfolio standards to carbon pricing, offering key design principles and case studies where each policy has been implemented successfully. We don’t need to wait for new technologies or strategies to create a low carbon future—and we can’t afford to. Designing Climate Solutions gives professionals the tools they need to select, design, and implement the policies that can put us on the path to a livable climate future.

In the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, industrialized countries agreed on binding absolute targets for greenhouse gas emissions and on the admission of flexible market-economy instruments - such as emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism - used for reaching the targets. The contributions in this volume reveal that flexible instruments can lower the costs of climate protection considerably - not only in theory, but also in practice. Concerning implementation, it will be necessary to take care of possible loopholes, uncertainties and transaction costs which may be too high if no proper design is chosen.

The present study analyses the international activities of British start-up companies in high-technology industries. The research makes the following contributions. First, it is the first study that establishes the prevalence of internationally operating start-up companies in a particular country. Accordingly, we find that the majority of British high-tech start-ups have engaged in international activities within a few years since formation. Second, it consolidates the existing knowledge in the fields of international entrepreneurship and subjects it to empirical testing. Third, it assesses the power of different theories in international business to explain the cross-border activities of start-up companies. Overall, the research lends support to a resource-based perspective of international entrepreneurship since the proxies for transaction cost-based arguments and the internationalisation process theory are of limited explanatory power.

Coordination And Communication Using Signs: Studies in Organisational Semiotics is a cutting-edge volume that bridges the gap between the technical and social aspects of information systems and information technology. The chapters in the book are divided into two major sections. The first section deals with Communication and Pragmatics, and Organisational Systems and the following topics are examined: the semiotic framework and natural language; coordination and communication using natural language and other artifacts in a real-life setting; substantive-level issues of information systems and business processes from several theoretical perspectives; language as action; communication quality in the context of systems and business processes; organisational action and Greimas' semiotics. Section Two concentrates on organisational systems, which may or may not include a computer system as a component and examines the following topics: semiotic strategies and semiotic models of organisational structures; the impact of information technology with instructive case studies; the impact of information technology with a particular focus on sense-making in the work floor context; the design of computer information systems; improving the design quality of agent-based information systems; the design of information systems, in terms of capacity, and data scheme. All the chapters in the volume have been submitted to a review process of discussants and peer reviews.