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This article reports on the success of the carbon market, which allows industries to buy and sell carbon dioxide credits. The purpose of setting up the market was, first, to establish a price for carbon and, second, to encourage efficient emissions reductions by allowing companies which would find it expensive to cut emissions to buy credits more cheaply. It has had some success on both counts. INSET: Irrational incandescence.

The article focuses on European environmental policies and the need for reforms to the renewable energy sector and the carbon market. It states that exemptions to the carbon market should be removed which would benefit the economy as a whole even if a few industries saw an increase in production costs. It mentions that subsidies have helped the renewable energy sector but have cost 16 billion euros in German in 2013 while undermining the European Union's emissions-trading scheme.

The article discusses Europe's Emissions Trading System (ETS) cap-and-trade scheme as of 2013, with information on the programme's aim of reducing carbon emissions in the European Union (EU). Topics include the surplus of carbon permits due to low levels of demand, attempts of the European Commission to postpone introduction of carbon allowances until demand increases, and the implications of ETS implementation issues for other governments with similar programmes.

The article discusses a proposal by U.S. President Barack Obama to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by implementing a "cap and trade" mechanism. Leaders in both houses of Congress seem receptive, although how to spend the proceeds from the sale of emissions permits is a topic of debate. Some believe the price of permits could prove sufficiently high to damage the economy.

The article discusses a plan proposed by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama for a “cap and trade” mechanism to reduce carbon emissions. Obama claims his proposal would reduce emissions from 2005 levels by 83% in the year 2050. Republican John Boehner, though, believes it constitutes a tax increase on Americans.

This article presents an editorial discussing the major issues to be addressed at the forthcoming Group of 8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. In less than two weeks the leaders of the world's largest economies will meet at Gleneagles, a posh golf resort in the Scottish highlands, for the G8 summit. Astonishingly, these get-togethers have not always achieved a great deal. Since their creation 30 years ago, G8 summits have often been blown off course by random events, or been marred by empty grandstanding before the accompanying media circus. In one way, things look more promising this year. Britain, which is currently chairing the G8, is determined that the leaders should focus on two big issues--African poverty and climate change--which are both huge problems and need to be addressed at a global level. In another way, things don't look so promising: the rich world's leaders will probably pass up on the chance to discuss the most important thing they could do to slow climate change--set up a global system for trading carbon-emissions permits. That's because U.S. President George W. Bush is adamantly opposed to the limits on pollution that any such scheme requires.

The article discusses carbon-emissions trading. Market forces and the environment are not always in harmony, but a new venture, announced on September 7th, may help lessen the discord. The European Climate Exchange (ECX), formed in an agreement between the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), will offer European companies a place to trade emissions credits for greenhouse gases. Regulation has spurred the creation of the ECX. Next January, the European Union will put into effect new rules designed to curb carbon-dioxide emissions, which contribute to global warming. Companies in the EU's 25 member states will be allowed to emit a certain amount. If they go over, they can buy credits from companies that have stayed within their limits. The ECX plans to offer trading in emissions-credit futures by the end of this year, with cash products to follow soon afterwards. In anticipation of this scheme, forward trading has already begun, though not on the ECX. Nine European brokerage houses already facilitate over-the-counter trades. Evolution Markets, one such firm, estimates that the volume traded has risen from 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide in January to 600,000 in July. The American market has not had Europe's regulatory shove: the United States, unlike Europe, did not sign the Kyoto agreement on climate change and is not forcing companies to limit emissions.

The article focuses on environmentalism in the mid-1990s and states that some environmental rules have created fast-growing clean-up industries. Businesses in many Countries have been complaining that environmental regulations push up their costs. Greens and economists have long recognized that growth should not be the only goal of government policy. But it is not yet time to write environmentalism off. The green movement has been cultivating new allies, and devising a new argument. Green rules have created a fast-growing clean-up industry, which is joining hands with green groups to lobby governments for stricter rules on emissions. There is a perfectly good reason for having regulations to protect the environment. It is to protect the environment. That is a public good that even economists recognize, and see the need to pay for, though they will rightly quibble about the price.

Reports on tradeable permits which are rarely used to tackle environmental issues outside of America. Tradeable permits as the core of the new clean-air act before Congress; Explanation of what tradeable permits are; Their use in the new clean-air act; Proposal to cut emissions from electricity-generating plants; Process of ensuring some trading; International trading system in greenhouse gases; Skeptic's views; Nightmare of policing the trading.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Worse Than Useless," published in the January 25, 2014 issue.

The article focuses on carbon prices in 2013 and the success of Europe's emissions-trading system (ETS). Topics include the internal carbon price for a ton of CO2, why corporations use carbon pricing to prepare for future environmental legislation, and how carbon prices can help calculate the value of investments.

The article looks at the possibility that markets are overlooking the risk of unburnable carbon, or the parts of fossil fuel companies' reserves that must stay in the the ground. Topics include the amount of carbon that can be burned without causing more than two degrees of global warming, the increasing share of total energy output from state-owned energy companies, and the possibility that the European Union's emissions trading system might collapse.

The article considers the emissions trading system (ETS) of the European Union (EU). A scheduled vote in the European Parliament on a proposal to allow the European Commission to postpone auctions of carbon allowances by the ETS is discussed as a reaction to a decline in the value of such allowances due to a lack of demand. The possible collapse of the ETS due to such low prices is considered, particularly its impact on emissions trading in other countries.

The article looks at efforts to impose emissions-trading systems in China, the largest carbon emitter on the planet, focusing on Chinese environmental policy.

The article considers European Union (EU) environmental policies related to climatic changes and climate change mitigation. A proposal by the European Commission on how to meet the EU's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 percent by 2050 is examined. A proposal to alter the EU emissions trading market is discussed.

The article discusses changes in the emissions trading program the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto protocol. CDM assigns credits to countries that reduce emissions and allows wealthy governments to buy credits from other countries in lieu of cutting their own emissions. Reported plans for CDM to expand the number and nature of the sustainable development programs it credits are noted.

The article discusses the environmental movement around the world. In America, greens have suffered a string of defeats on high-profile issues. Europe's green groups, while politically stronger, are also starting to lose their way intellectually. A sensible green analysis of nuclear power would weigh its (very high) economic costs and (fairly low) safety risks against the important benefit of generating electricity with no greenhouse-gas emissions. The coming into force of the United Nations's Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a victory for Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger failure. The most promising aspect of the treaty--its innovative use of market-based instruments such as carbon-emissions trading--was resisted tooth and nail by Europe's greens. If environmental groups continue to reject pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward Utopian visions of the future, they will lose the battle of ideas. Rachel Carson, the crusading journalist who inspired greens in the 1950s and 1960s, is joining hands with Adam Smith, the hero of free-marketeers.

Reports on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), a voluntary project to reduce gases that big U.S. companies emit. Focus of the U.S. businesses on trading credits earned by emissions reductions; Development of the project by such large companies as Ford, DuPont and BP America; Role of economist Richard Sandor in designing the emissions exchange; The lack of any government involvement in the project.

Discusses urban air pollution in poor cities such as Taiyuan, in north-east China. Proposal of Taiyuan officials to use emissions trading in an attempt to achieve a 50 percent reduction in sulphur-dioxide output; The use of permits in the emissions-trading system in an effort to reduce pollution levels in the most economically efficient manner; Realization that pollution is bad for the economy; The growing environmental movements in many developing countries.