An overview is given of the growing number of regional associations in which states have entered into voluntary arrangements to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In particular, in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a number of northeastern states have joined to create a regional...

The inclusion of emissions trading in the Kyoto Protocol reflects an important decision to address climate change issues through flexible market mechanisms. In this paper, we address a number of policy issues that must be considered in designing and implementing an international greenhouse gas...

This is an invited discussion on the Manne and Richels’ paper “The Kyoto Protocol: A Cost-Effective Strategy for Meeting Environmental Objective”. It focuses on four issues or questions: distributional realities of the international climate change negotiations, correspondence between...

China had been the world’s second largest carbon emitter for years. Recent studies show that China had overtaken the U.S. as the world’s largest emitter in 2007. This has put China on the spotlight, just at a time when the world community starts negotiating a post-Kyoto climate regime under...

This is an invited discussion on the Ye, Jin and Liu’s paper “Analysis of Advantages and Disadvantages of Implementation of AIJ for China”. It focuses on five issues or questions: the subject of the paper, China’s concerns about clean development mechanism, what China has done so far in...

This is an invited discussion on the Morozova and Stuart’s paper “The Size of the Carbon Market Study”. It suggests a number of issues for consideration in appropriately estimating the size of carbon markets. They include Annex 1 (industrialised) countries’ baseline emissions;...

The Europe Union is about to lunch the world’s first greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme in history. This represents an enormous challenge because there is no previous experience with such an unprecedented scheme, and because its final outcome might shape the design of future environmental...

A considerable body of economic literature shows the adverse economic impacts of oil-price shocks for the developed economies. However, there has been a lack of empirical study of this kind on China and other developing countries. This paper attempts to fill this gap by answering how and to what...

Given that China is already the world’s largest carbon emitter and its emissions continue to rise rapidly in line with its industrialization and urbanization, there is no disagreement that China eventually needs to take on binding greenhouse gas emissions caps. However, the key challenges are...

The climate-trade nexus gains increasing attention as governments are taking great efforts to forge a post-2012 climate change regime to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. This raises the issues of the scope of trade-related measures and of when and how they could be used. To gain some guidance on the...