The first Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change opened the path for a new policy instrument to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. It instituted a pilot phase for international emission offsets, "Joint Implementation", open for all signatories to the...

A necessary condition of an efficient global climate change mitigation policy is to equate marginal abatement costs across world regions to ensure use of the cheapest abatement options available. The welfare economic justification for such an approach rests on lump sum transfers between regions...