This book sets out the building blocks of an economic approach to biodiversity, and in particular brings together conceptual and empirical work on valuation, international agreements, the policy instruments, and the institutions. The objective is to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues...

Time consistency problems can arise when environmental taxes are employed to encourage firms to take irreversible abatement decisions. Setting a high carbon tax, for instance, would induce firms to invest in low-carbon technology, yet once investment has occurred the government can then reduce...

The paper sets out the credibility problem in carbon policy, provides a number of examples of non-credibility in recent energy policy, and identifies the costs of failing to address it. The time inconsistency of carbon policy--arising because of multiple objectives, the irreversibility of energy...