REDD-Monitor

“The [US] cap-and-trade bill is a travesty. Its net effect on short- to medium-term carbon emissions will be small to none. This is by design…. It relies heavily on offsets – theoretical carbon reductions bought from other countries or other industries – so that big US emitters will not need to try so hard…. It creates a vastly complicated apparatus, a playground for special interests and rent-seekers, a minefield of unintended consequences – and the bottom line for all that is business as usual.” — Clive Crook, Financial Times, June 2009