Carbon Coalitions

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world'sprimary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbonmarkets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of thetrend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presentsthe first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in makingthis policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.Meckling explains how atransnational coalition of firms and a few market-oriented environmental groups actively promotedinternational emissions trading as a compromise policy solution in a situation of politicalstalemate. The coalition sidelined not only environmental groups that favored taxation andcommand-and-control regulation but also business interests that rejected any emissions controls.Considering the sources of business influence, Meckling emphasizes the importance of politicalopportunities (policy crises and norms), coalition resources (funding and legitimacy,) and politicalstrategy (mobilizing state allies and multilevel advocacy).Meckling presents three case studies thatrepresent milestones in the rise of carbon trading: the internationalization of emissions trading inthe Kyoto Protocol (1989--2000); the creation of the EU Emissions Trading System (1998--2008); andthe reemergence of emissions trading on the U.S. policy agenda (2001--2009). These cases and thetheoretical framework that Meckling develops for understanding the influence of transnationalbusiness coalitions offer critical insights into the role of business in the emergence ofmarket-based global environmental governance.

Jonas Meckling is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University.