[asa] Political Economy of Carbon Trading

Good article from the London Review of Books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n07/mack01_.html

From the conclusion:

 Almost certainly, though, if there is such an international agreement
carbon trading will be at its heart. That will again raise the issue of the
ratchet, the need for a mechanism to stop a carbon market failing because
the caps haven't been set low enough. Finding such a mechanism has been hard
enough even in a partially unified polity such as Europe; it will be much
harder globally. Furthermore, even if the world can find its ratchet, carbon
trading shouldn't be expected to solve on its own the problem humanity faces
in curbing emissions. Global efforts to do that are in their infancy, and it
would be folly to neglect other policy measures that could help, such as
direct government regulation (a small but important example is the phasing
out of old-fashioned, inefficient light bulbs), massively increased research
and development spending, and a well-thought-out policy for tackling the
many practical obstacles to the uptake of energy-saving measures and the
cleaner technologies that already exist.

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Received on Mon, 9 Apr 2007 13:39:19 -0400