Winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Titles of 2010 award. This book is a comprehensive and accessible guide to understanding the opportunities offered by regulated and voluntary carbon markets for tackling climate change. Coverage includes: - An overview of the problem of climate change, with a concise review of the most recent scientific evidence in different fields - A highly accessible introduction to the economic theory and different constitutive elements of a carbon allowances market - Explanation of the Kyoto Protocol and its flexibility mechanisms - Explanation of how the EU Emissions Trading Scheme works in practice - Ongoing developments in regulated carbon markets in the US - Up-to-the-minute coverage of regulated carbon markets in Australia - Developments in New Zealand and Japan - Carbon offsetting and voluntary carbon markets. Combining theoretical aspects with practical applications, this book is for business leaders, financiers, carbon traders, lawyers, bankers, researchers, policy makers and anyone interested in market mechanisms to mitigate climate change. The carbon emissions resulting from the production of this book have been calculated, reduced and offset to render the bookcarbon neutral. Published with CO2 Neutral

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Environmental Sciences, grade: 1,0, Vrije University Brussel (Solvay Business School), course: Advanced Technology, language: English, abstract: The ongoing process of changes in the global climate system is rather undisputed these days, as it is evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice as well as rising global sea levels. Moreover, while the exact causes for the currently observed increases in global temperatures are yet to be established, a growing consensus is emerging that at least part of it is human-caused. As a result, various panels and organisations have emerged throughout the world, which are working on strategies how to reverse or at least halt this process. As Kolk & Pinske point out the resulting climate policies across different sectors and locations are diverse. Various companies are trying to restructure their operations in order to reduce waste and to make their processes more energy efficient. A number of governments are enacting policies to replace CO2-intensive energy, released through the burning of coal, oil and gas by more environmentally friendly, so-called ‘clean’ energy, such as wind, solar, or hydroelectric power. Others are resorting back to nuclear power asserting that the actual risks of this technology are by far not as high as they are perceived to be or as they were some years ago. A further alternative that has recently been implemented by the EU is a ‘cap-and-trade system’ for energy-intensive industries, which defines strict limits for the absolute amount of emissions. While the responsibility for complying with this regulation rests with the companies in the respective industries, they are free to find ways how to stay within the limits. Compensating for emissions by purchasing carbon credits is one prominent option available to companies in this respect. Purpose of this paper will hence be to analyse the current state of emissions trading development and assess the prospects of a universal worldwide emissions trading scheme.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century and receives more and more international awareness. The central instruments to counter climate change are emissions trading schemes (ETS) to cover GHG emissions. To increase efficiency and to ensure global reduction of emissions damaging to the climate, an international emissions trading scheme would be a rational choice. To establish such a global scheme, political decision makers could follow a bottom-up-approach by linking already existing ETS with each other. The book investigates such linkings of emissions trading schemes, which provide many benefits for the linking partners. As experience shows, although the number of schemes increased in the last decade, only a few linkings were established. Thus, the book answers the question, if and which conditions for states exist to link their emissions trading schemes. .

In Carbon Trading Law and Practice, author Scott D. Deatherage provides practitioners with a comprehensive practical guide to the US and international practice of carbon emissions trading. The book includes a comprehensive examination of climate change, emissions trading, international and EU law, other reduction programs, carbon credit financing, and the US regulatory regime for emissions trading.

International emission trading will be one of the most important tools in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. While the private sector has embraced the concept and is well equipped to use it, implementation at the international level remains incomplete. This book provides a broad assessment of the issue from the 'perfect' system envisaged in economic models to a more realistic view of how trading can actually work. The review is based on market experiments and modelling undertaken by the International Energy Agency and other institutions. It takes an in-depth look at implications for the power generation sector, and considers how developing countries could be included in a future trading regime.The aim of the book is to clarify what can be expected from international emission trading in the energy sector, and in other activities.

Why the traditional “pledge and review” climate agreements have failed, and how carbon pricing, based on trust and reciprocity, could succeed. After twenty-five years of failure, climate negotiations continue to use a “pledge and review” approach: countries pledge (almost anything), subject to (unenforced) review. This approach ignores everything we know about human cooperation. In this book, leading economists describe an alternate model for climate agreements, drawing on the work of the late Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom and others. They show that a “common commitment” scheme is more effective than an “individual commitment” scheme; the latter depends on altruism while the former involves reciprocity (“we will if you will”). The contributors propose that global carbon pricing is the best candidate for a reciprocal common commitment in climate negotiations. Each country would commit to placing charges on carbon emissions sufficient to match an agreed global price formula. The contributors show that carbon pricing would facilitate negotiations and enforcement, improve efficiency and flexibility, and make other climate policies more effective. Additionally, they analyze the failings of the 2015 Paris climate conference. Contributors Richard N. Cooper, Peter Cramton, Ottmar Edenhofer, Christian Gollier, Éloi Laurent, David JC MacKay, William Nordhaus, Axel Ockenfels, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Steven Stoft, Jean Tirole, Martin L. Weitzman

First published in 1985, Emissions Trading was a comprehensive review of the first large-scale attempt to use economic incentives in environmental policy in the U.S. and of the empirical and theoretical research on which this approach is based. Since its publication it has consistently been one of the most widely cited works in the tradable permits literature. The second edition of this classic study of pollution reform considers how the use of transferable permits to control pollution has evolved, looks at how these programs have been implemented in the U.S. and internationally, and offers an objective evaluation of the resulting successes, failures, and lessons learned over the last twenty-five years.