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

Emissions trading (ET) challenges business managers in an entirely new manner, changing the criteria by which environmental policy steers management decisions from hierarchical to monetary. The 24 contributions to this volume discuss ET theoretically and empirically in these broad topic areas: 1) Institutional design, decision making and innovation; 2) Investment and management strategies; 3) ET and business administration and 4) Effects of existing and emerging ET schemes.

Emissions trading is becoming an increasingly popular policy instrument with growing diversity in design. This book examines emissions trading design, emissions trading implementation problems and how to address them. In an easily accessible way

Meckling explains how a transnational coalition of firms and a few market-oriented environmental groups actively promoted international emissions trading as a compromise policy solution in a situation of political stalemate. The coalition sidelined not only environmental groups that favored taxation and command-and-control regulation but also business interests that rejected any emissions controls. Considering the sources of business influence, Meckling emphasizes the importance of political opportunities (policy crises and norms), coalition resources (funding and legitimacy,) and political strategy (mobilizing state allies and multilevel advocacy).

The world carbon market is growing at a staggering rate with trading volumes into the tens of billions of dollars and approaching a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. The growth prospects for business are enormous and the potential positive impacts for greenhouse gas emission reductions, climate policy options, renewable energy investment, development projects and efficiency gains are increasingly apparent.A key part of the market in greenhouse gas emissions is the rapidly growing voluntary carbon market driven by companies, organizations and individuals committed to efficiency, profitability and rapid action on climate change. HSBC, Volvo, Avis, Ricoh and American Express are but a few of the many companies now offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions and becoming 'carbon neutral', fuelling an international voluntary carbon market that is growing exponentially. This groundbreaking business book, written in a fast-paced journalistic style, draws together all the key information on international voluntary carbon markets with commentary from leading practitioners and business people. The voluntary market is complex, fragmented and multi-layered, but it is beginning to consolidate around a few guiding practices and business models from which conclusions can be drawn about market direction and opportunities.The book covers all aspects of voluntary carbon markets around the world: what they are, how they work and, most critically, their business potential to help slow climate change. It is the indispensable guide for anyone seeking to understand voluntary carbon markets and capitalize on the opportunities they present for economic and environmental benefit. If you want to be ahead of the curve for the next big thing, you need this book.

Emissions trading schemes figure prominently among policy instruments used to tackle the problem of climate change, and the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), begun in 2005, is the largest cap-and-trade market so far established. In the EU ETS, firms regulated by the scheme are provided with emissions allowances (each a one-time right to emit one ton of greenhouse gases) and can sell their unused allowances to firms that have higher rates of emissions. In this volume, leading economists offer empirical and theoretical perspectives on the early phases of the EU ETS implementation. The contributors discuss the features of the EU ETS market; and regulatory uncertainty stemming from rule changes; the political economy context of the trading scheme, including allowance allocation and the influence of lobbying on abatement decisions; the coexistence of such overlapping instruments for climate policy as pricing and taxation; the relationship between spot and futures markets for allowances, and firms' responses to various features of the EU ETS, including fluctuating allowance prices, free allocation, and links to the Kyoto process. They show that, although the basic theory behind emissions permit markets is straightforward, design features, market structure, and interactions with other policy instruments can influence the efficiency of the scheme.--

This new and timely multi-contributor volume draws upon the very best international experience and a host of practical examples to offer advice and proven strategies to deal with the growing issue of emissions risk and compliance to emissions trading programmes