Environmental Markets: Equity and Efficiency

Front Cover
Graciela Chichilnisky, Geoffrey Heal
Columbia University Press, 2000 M08 25 - 280 pages

Markets are increasingly central to the resolution of environmental problems. They played a critical role in implementing the 1990 Clean Air Act of the United States, which has been instrumental in reducing acid rain in a cost-effective manner. They are also central to the global strategy adopted for limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and are being used for resolving conflicts over the use of other environmental resources, particularly water.

Environmental Markets: Equity and Efficiency represents the first systematic and in-depth study of the economic issues raised by this growing use of environmental markets. Focusing on the relationship between equity and efficiency—which is central to many of the debates between industrial and developing countries—the book explores the underlying economics and the possibilities for win-win solutions that benefit all parties to the problems.

Graciela Chichilnisky and Geoffrey Heal have been instrumental in developing the economic understanding required for the operation of environmental markets and for promoting their use among policy makers leading to the Kyoto Protocol. Contributors to this volume include established experts from international organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and academia, including Raśl Estrada-Oyuela, who chaired the negotiating committee of the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto meetings.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Markets for Tradable Carbon Dioxide Emission Quotas Principles and Practice
13
Equity and Efficiency in Environmental Markets Global Trade in Carbon Dioxide Emissions
46
Emissions Constraints Emission Permits and Marginal Abatement Costs
68
Equilibrium and Efficiency International Emission Permits Markets
82
Efficiency Properties of a ConstantRatio Mechanism for the Distribution of Tradable Emission Permits
110
Who Should Abate Carbon Emissions? An International Viewpoint
126
Differentiated or Uniform International Carbon Taxes Theoretical Evidences and Procedural Constraints
135
Securitizing the Biosphere
169
Equity and Efficiency in Emission Markets The Case for an International Bank for Environmental Settlements
180
The Clean Development Mechanism Unwrapping the Kyoto Surprise
218
Knowledge and the Environment Markets with Privately Produced Public Goods
242
A Commentary on the Kyoto Protocol
247
The Kyoto Protocol of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
255
Contributors
281
Index
287

Efficiency and Distribution in Computable Models of Carbon Emission Abatement
156

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About the author (2000)

Graciela Chichilnisky holds the UNESCO Chair in Mathematics and Economics and is professor of statistics at Columbia University, where she is the director of the Program on Information and Resources and its Center for Risk Management. She introduced and developed the concept of "basic needs" and is the author of eleven books and some 180 scientific articles.Geoffrey Heal is Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility and professor of economics and finance of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University. A past president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, he is the author of many scientific articles and thirteen books, including Economic Theory and Exhaustible Resources; Valuing the Future: Economic Theory and Sustainability; and Nature and the Marketplace.

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