Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading: Book Review
Book review by Gabriel Thoumi, special to mongabay.comDecember 13, 2011
By presenting an exhaustive and accessible history of the three main climate change mitigation coalitions functioning roughly since 1990:
- The pro-command-and-control NGO coalitions,
- The pro-trading NGO-business coalitions, and
- The antiregulatory business coalitions
The author provides relevant lessons learned from this multi decadal experience.
The key empirical findings from 1990 to 2009 regarding corporate, governmental, and NGO policy entrepreneurs generally are put into the following areas:
- Significant emitters as policy entrepreneurs – demonstrated through initial policy mechanisms proposed by large emitters with later proposals including a broader coalition of interests.
- Private demonstration to public trading mechanisms – demonstrated through the process by which small scale demonstration projects may demonstrate proof of concept leading to large scale mechanisms across a subnational, national or international political boundary.
- Transnational coalitions – demonstrated by thematic coalitions defined by political ideology across political borders.
- Intra-national policy crises driving new ideas – demonstrated by specific events such as Hurricane Katrina driving intra-national policy responses.
What I find most interesting about Dr. Jonas Meckling’s analysis is what he comments indirectly on not being included in the history of these carbon coalitions and their approach using cause and effect responses and compromise based solutions. Because the above coalitions follow a pattern of functioning based on cause-and-effect and compromise, what is not included is the simple fact that if the 21 st Century is defined as a century of natural capital, regardless of whether legislation is developed or not developed based on recommendations from the pro-command-and-control NGO coalitions, the pro-trading NGO-business coalitions, and the antiregulatory business coalitions, natural capital will need to be accounted for financially under any mechanism – whether carbon tax, cap-and-trade, combined carbon tax and cap-and-trade, and / or other another mechanism.
This means that while we have spent 20 years developing global carbon coalitions under various proposals that sometimes are diametrically opposed to how any other proposal might function, the financial accounting inputs to any of these proposals are the same. This means that if we are going to develop systematic approaches to climate change, financial accounting valuation of natural capital and carbon impacts need to be developed within a simple format and applied to governments, businesses, and not-for-profits globally regardless of which climate change mitigation mechanisms is applied.
In summary, I highly recommend Jonas Meckling’s thought provoking, illustrative and accessible book on carbon coalitions while I hope that 20 years hence in 2031, we are not still struggling with coalitions and instead looking at fundamental financial accounting valuation issues such that whichever coalitions exists under which ever mechanisms are used, natural capital will be properly valued within a systematic, transparent and simple solution.
How to order:
Carbon Coalitions: Business, Climate Politics, and the Rise of Emissions Trading: Book Review
Paperback: 240 Pages, $22.00
Publisher: The MIT Press, 2011 (978-0-262-51633-4)
Authors: Jonas Meckling, PhD.
Gabriel Thoumi, CFA is a frequent contributor to Mongabay.com.
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