Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Climate change and its impacts: a short summary
- 2 Greenhouse gas emissions
- 3 Keeping climate change within sustainable limits: where to draw the line?
- 4 Development first
- 5 Energy Supply
- 6 Transportation
- 7 Buildings
- 8 Industry and waste management
- 9 Land use, agriculture, and forestry
- 10 How does it fit together?
- 11 Policies and measures
- 12 International climate change agreements
- Index
- Plate section
11 - Policies and measures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Climate change and its impacts: a short summary
- 2 Greenhouse gas emissions
- 3 Keeping climate change within sustainable limits: where to draw the line?
- 4 Development first
- 5 Energy Supply
- 6 Transportation
- 7 Buildings
- 8 Industry and waste management
- 9 Land use, agriculture, and forestry
- 10 How does it fit together?
- 11 Policies and measures
- 12 International climate change agreements
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
What is covered in this chapter?
Without policies that provide incentives to act, the enormous potential for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will not be realized. This chapter is therefore devoted to discussing the various policies that can be used to influence behaviour of consumers and companies, the circumstances under which they are effective, and the administrative capacities required. With emission reduction objectives becoming more stringent, there is a shift from ‘soft policy instruments’ such as funding for research and development, information, voluntary agreements, and green government procurement to ‘hard instruments’ like regulations, taxes, and tradable permit systems. Particularly trading systems are becoming popular. Climate policies are just half the story. It is equally important to use non-climate policies, such a general tax, macro-economic, trade, and other environmental policies to change behaviour in a more climate friendly direction. In practice combinations of policies are always needed to achieve optimal results. Lessons have been learned from implementation of policies about what works best in what sector. Ultimately it is the total package of policies in a country that will determine greenhouse gas emissions and some examples of that will be discussed.
Realizing mitigation potential requires government policies
The point has been made over and over again in the previous chapters: without specific policy action by governments the potential to bring greenhouse gas emissions substantially down will not be realized.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Controlling Climate Change , pp. 287 - 317Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009