Description
Book SynopsisVoluntary approaches (VAs) are increasingly implemented in different countries as the main instrument in environmental policies. The authors focus on the economics of VAs, their advantages and disadvantages and how they compare with other climate policy instruments.
Voluntary Approaches in Climate Policy illustrates how corporate voluntarism can be harnessed to mitigate the climatic impact of business, and assesses the economics of VAs at the firm level and in the context of climate policies. It goes on to explore their efficiency and effectiveness, how they compare and combine with other instruments, how they impact competition and why they get adopted. Many questions are addressed and answered, such as:
- What kinds of VAs have been implemented in different countries?
- How did they perform under various economic and environmental criteria?
- What are the key factors in increasing firms' participation in VAs?
- How do VAs combine with other climate policy instruments such as carbon taxes and emissions trading?
- How could they be designed for better performance?
The book also contains an overview of VAs with a summary of each contribution, their main policy implications and suggestions for future research.
Highlighting the implications of VAs in policy terms, this accessible book will appeal to a wide-ranging audience including economists, social scientists, policymakers and business managers, as well as environmental scientists and practitioners with a specific interest in climate change.
Trade Review'While in the context of pure environmental economic theory, national policies and cross-country evaluations by several international organizations voluntary agreements have been repeatedly assessed, an in-depth economic evaluation of voluntary agreements in climate policy has been lacking. Baranzini and Thalman have closed this gap and their collection of articles will be a standard reference for some time to come.' -- Axel Michaelowa, Climate Policy
Table of ContentsContents: Foreword Preface 1. An Overview of the Economics of Voluntary Approaches in Climate Policies 2. Effectiveness of Voluntary Approaches: Implications for Climate Mitigation 3. Do Voluntary Approaches to Climate Change Lead to Efficient Environmental Protection? 4. Voluntary Approaches as Climate Policy Tools: Competition Issues and the Role of Market Structure 5. Self-enforcing Voluntary Approaches with Incomplete Information and Environmental Uncertainty 6. Public Voluntary Programmes for Mitigating Climate Change 7. Voluntary Approaches under Uncertainty and Irreversibility 8. Negotiated Agreements and the Demand for Political Legitimacy 9. The Architecture and Functioning of Dutch Negotiated Agreements 10. Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Correcting Market Failures Using Public Voluntary Programmes 11. A Transaction Cost Perspective on Negotiated Agreements: The Case of the USEPA XL Programme 12. Voluntary Approaches and Technical Regulation in the Future Development of EU Climate Policy 13. The UK Climate Change Levy Agreements: Combining Negotiated Agreements with Tax and Emission Trading 14. Swiss Climate Policy: Combining VAs with Other Instruments under the Menace of a CO2 Tax 15. An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of the Danish Energy Agreements Index
