Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and a New Model of Emissions Trading

Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Science, Biological Sciences, Environmental Science, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Government, Public Policy, Nature
Cover of the book Reclaiming the Atmospheric Commons by Leigh Raymond, The MIT Press
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Author: Leigh Raymond ISBN: 9780262336178
Publisher: The MIT Press Publication: September 9, 2016
Imprint: The MIT Press Language: English
Author: Leigh Raymond
ISBN: 9780262336178
Publisher: The MIT Press
Publication: September 9, 2016
Imprint: The MIT Press
Language: English

How the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative created a new paradigm in climate policy by requiring polluters to pay for their emissions for the first time.

In 2008, a group of states in the northeast United States launched an emissions trading program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). With RGGI, these states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont—achieved what had been considered politically impossible: they forced polluters to pay the public for their emissions. The states accomplished this by conducting auctions of emissions “allowances”; by 2014, they had raised more than $2.2 billion in revenues. In this first in-depth examination of RGGI, Leigh Raymond describes this revolutionary and influential policy model and explains the practical and theoretical implications for climate policy.

Other cap-and-trade schemes had been criticized for providing private profits rather than public benefits, allowing private firms to make money by buying and selling valuable “rights to pollute.” RGGI, by contrast, directed virtually all emissions auction revenues to programs benefiting the public at large. By reframing the issue in terms of public benefits, environmental advocates emphasized the public ownership of the atmospheric commons and private corporations' responsibility to pay for their use of it.

Raymond argues that this kind of “normative reframing” is significant not only for environmental policy making but also for theories of the policy process, helping to explain and predict sudden policy change.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

How the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative created a new paradigm in climate policy by requiring polluters to pay for their emissions for the first time.

In 2008, a group of states in the northeast United States launched an emissions trading program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). With RGGI, these states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont—achieved what had been considered politically impossible: they forced polluters to pay the public for their emissions. The states accomplished this by conducting auctions of emissions “allowances”; by 2014, they had raised more than $2.2 billion in revenues. In this first in-depth examination of RGGI, Leigh Raymond describes this revolutionary and influential policy model and explains the practical and theoretical implications for climate policy.

Other cap-and-trade schemes had been criticized for providing private profits rather than public benefits, allowing private firms to make money by buying and selling valuable “rights to pollute.” RGGI, by contrast, directed virtually all emissions auction revenues to programs benefiting the public at large. By reframing the issue in terms of public benefits, environmental advocates emphasized the public ownership of the atmospheric commons and private corporations' responsibility to pay for their use of it.

Raymond argues that this kind of “normative reframing” is significant not only for environmental policy making but also for theories of the policy process, helping to explain and predict sudden policy change.

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