Carbon trading: saving the environment by monetising it?
... or by buying more pollution allowances from those who have some left (thus the policy is also known as carbon trading). In others words, the government just decides the amount of CO2 emissions which is set to decrease year-on-year thus slowing down climate change, and market players are free to choose who, how, and when is going to implement cleaner technologies. The upside of cap-and-trade systems is that emission reductions are supposed to happen where they are cheapest: if reducing emissions at plant A are more expensive than at plant B, it will be beneficial for plant A to pay money to plant B for implementing new technologies....