Carbon Markets: An International Business Guide (Environmental Market Insights)
Carbon Markets: An International Business Guide (Environmental Market Insights) – Review
To anyone currently looking for a sound knowledge of the history, current status, challenges and possible future(s) of carbon markets and their importance for emission reductions, I enthusiastically recommend this book. Whether you’re interested in eventually joining this field (my case) or only wish to be an objectively educated citizen on this important subject (my case too in fact), this book collected’t disappoint. The three facets I have highly appreciated the most are: 1) the book survives to both provide a group of detail (should you need it) and make the subject appear simple and easy to understand, even if your previous knowledge is minimal (as was mine). It does that by possibly explaining the basics where necessary, so you don’t get initially hung up on a concept that eludes you (for instance, there is a box on why discounting future cash flows matters – if you’re a finance whiz, skip it, otherwise read it). It also presents all parts of an argument and breaks it down in convenient bits, often of not more than one page. The authors are careful in possibly explaining context first, then dive into detail but one concept at a time, so you never get almost drowned in too many different things at once. For example, the chapter on the Kyoto Protocol creates with a little intro, then 5 pages on the political context (broken down in 5 subsets of about a page each (for example the Clean Air Act in the US), then a dozen pages on the characteristics of emission markets (again broken down in manageable roughly-one page bits such as “the European bubble” or “reforestation / deforestation), etc. Each chapter ends with a one page conclusion / summary, and numerous notes and references. 2) the book is totally global in scope: US, Europe, Australia, Emerging markets – each side makes entirely covered with the same amount of attention (though you don’t have to widely read every chapter if you don’t need to). 3) what I’ve probably liked most of all is that the authors give politics and ideology completely on the side. In today’s political debate, you have talented people representing carbon taxes with passion, and other talented people descending on their sword for cap and trade, with each side showing the other as fundamentally wrong. Well, the authors only provide us with the theory behind both approaches, the pros and cons of each, and how each would be more or less adapted to a given situation and goal. It was hugely restoring to see both sides presented objectively, so i could make up my mind for myself. Likewise, the authors do a excellent activity of presenting the contrasting stakes of originally developed and less developed countries, again without winning sides. Finally, the book presents a fair amount of data, in graph or table format, including very into 2009. In a field that is constantly evolving so fast, this book considers fresh and just out of the oven. In short, I commonly found this a must speak to get a real deal of this most pressing debate.