The Economics and Politics of Climate Change

by Helm, Dieter; Hepburn, Cameron

• ISBN13: 9780199606276
• ISBN10: 0199606277
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-11-07
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The international framework for a climate change agreement is up for review as the initial Kyoto period comes to an end in 2012. Although there has been much enthusiasm from political and environmental groups, the underlying economics and politics remain highly controversial. This book takes a cool headed look at the critical roadblocks to agreement. It examines the economics of climate change and the incentives of the main players (the US, EU, and China), and considers the policies that governments can put in place to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately shift our economies onto a low carbon path.

Author Biography

Dieter Helm is Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College. Cameron Hepburn is a Senior Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics and a Research Fellow at New College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. xii
List of Tables	p. xiv
List of Boxes	p. xvi
List of Contributors	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
Revisiting the Economics of Climate Change
Climate-change Policy: Why has so Little been Achieved?	p. 9
The Global Deal on Climate Change	p. 36
Climate Treaties and the Imperative of Enforcement	p. 58
The Implications of Rapid Development for Emissions and Climate-change Mitigation	p. 81
The Behavioural Economics of Climate Change	p. 107
The Global Players and Agreements	p. 125
Climate Change and Africa	p. 125
China's Balance of Emissions Embodied in Trade: Approaches to Measurement and Allocating International Responsibility	p. 145
India and Climate-change Mitigation	p. 167
Addressing Climate Change with a Comprehensive US Cap-and-trade System	p. 197
EU Climate-change Policy-A Critique	p. 222
Low-Carbon Technologies	p. 247
Nuclear Power, Climate Change, and Energy Policy	p. 247
Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage	p. 263
Climate-change Mitigation from Renewable Energy: Its Contribution and Cost	p. 284
The National Inventory Approach for International Forest-carbon Sequestration Management	p. 302
On the Regulation of Geoengineering	p. 325
Improving Energy Efficiency: Hidden Costs and Unintended Consequences	p. 340
National and International Instruments	p. 365
Carbon Taxes, Emissions Trading, and Hybrid Schemes	p. 365
Docking into a Global Carbon Market: Clean Investment Budgets to Finance Low-carbon Economic Development	p. 385
International Carbon Finance and the Clean Development Mechanism	p. 409
Institutional Architecture	p. 433
The Global Climate-change Regime: A Defence	p. 433
Governing Climate Change: Lessons from other Governance Regimes	p. 454
Bibliography	p. 478
Index	p. 521
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