Today's beleaguered yet expanding carbon market represents a type of relationship between economy and ecology scarcely imaginable forty years ago. This collection brings together a comprehensive array of perspectives to critically scrutinise the development and on-going maintenance of this global carbon market. The book's contributors recognise that the market itself, as well as the notion of the environment that it instantiates, is highly political and contested; thus the chapters investigate the market system and its insertion into and influence on climate and environmental governance within the global political economy. The book does this by analysing the routines, institutions, techniques and technologies established or refuted through practices of social and material negotiation. As well as an examination of the carbon market from a political perspective, the book includes contributions that equally interrogate what politics means, does and requires within climate and environmental governance. The book is organised into three sections.The first section investigates the political developments, technical arrangements and contextualising factors that lead up to the implementation of the carbon markets. The second section interrogates the social, political, material, technical and technological details of the carbon markets, as well as the relationship and connections between these details and the broader political economics/ecologic context. The final section asks what the political impacts and consequences of the markets are, what they mean for the climate governance regime and how they impact on the broader capitalist systems.

The development of an international substantive environmental right has long been a contested issue. Concurrently, environmental rights have developed in a fragmented way and to a limited extent through different legal regimes. This book examines the potential for the development of a global environmental right which would create legal duties for all decision-makers relating to the environment and provide the bedrock for a new system of international environmental governance. The book analyses not only traditional international environmental law and human rights law but also the development of corporate law, the development of the GATT and the WTO. It uses this basis to build an understanding of the wider international legal architecture and why that architecture often leads to poor outcomes for the environment. The book summarizes the state of scientific knowledge, as it is this, which drives the justification for legal reform. It also analyses existing systems that have developed within the practice of decision-making processes to demonstrate the role that they can play within new systems of environmental governance. Taking a problem solving approach, the book seeks to demonstrate how straightforward and logical changes to the architecture would solve fundamental problems and argues for the development of a new environmental right that creates clear legal responsibilities for decision-makers, illustrating how governments and institutions would need to adjust to make the changes operative and successful. This problem solving approach extends to the provision of a draft treaty annexed to the book. This innovative and interdisciplinary book is of great interest to students and researchers in international environmental law, environmental politics, environmental economics, and environmental management, as well as those studying more specifically the WTO, international trade law, human rights law, constitutional law and company law.

This wonderful book demonstrates how rural livelihoods - as well as diets, health and ways of life - are enhanced by the so-called neglected and underutilized plant species which, in the book s Syrian case study, include such deliciously interesting things as capers, laurel, jujube and figs. Using value chain analysis the author illuminates the opportunities for strengthening arid land economies with attention to such species, while simultaneously maintaining the diversity and integrity of those plant genomes, landscapes and cultures. And keeping the world worth tasting. KEN WILSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE CHRISTENSEN FUND Alexandra Giuliani delivers a convincing and very practical account of how biodiversity products derived from neglected and underutilized plant species enter the markets in Syria. By highlighting the value of these plant products for the family income and health status of marginal farmer families in rural drylands and semi-arid areas, she brings the message home as to why it is so important to maintain biodiversity of the genetic resources not by protection alone, but rather through their judicious use. KATHARINA JENNY, SENIOR ADVISOR, FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS, SWISS AGENCY FOR DEVELOPMENT AND COOPERATION Just four crops - maize, potatoes, rice and wheat - provide more than 90 per cent of the world s food. Old varieties of even these crops are disappearing as farmers and consumers strive for more uniformity in food products. This in turn affects less obvious elements, such as insects that play a role in pollinating plants or controlling pests and the soil organisms that help plants extract nutrients from the soil. Also, farmers need a broad base of agrobiodiversity to be able to respond and adapt to environmental changes and to improve their production. This is especially important in the face of climate change and changing economic and political pressures. This book from Bioversity International describes a study conducted in Syria of how communities are developing markets for local products derived from neglected and underutilized plants. Based on concrete case studies, the data and processes documented in this book show the potential of biodiversity to make a significant contribution to livelihood security in communities that inhabit difficult environments with unique resources. The study also highlights the importance of local cultural knowledge and institutions in sustainable development of biodiversity markets. Published with Bioversity International."

Canada is a well-endowed country that serves as an ideal model to lead the reader through the development of energy, resources, and society historically and into a post-carbon future. The book provides an historical perspective and describes the physical resource limitations, energy budgets, and climate realities that will determine the potential for any transition to renewable energy. Political and social realities, including jurisdiction and energy equality issues, are addressed. However, we cannot simply mandate or legislate policies according to social and political aspirations. Policies must comply with the realities of physical laws, such as the energy return on investment (EROI) for fossil-fuel based and renewable energy systems. EROI is discussed in both historical terms and in reference to the greater efficiencies inherent in a distributed generation, mainly electric, post-carbon society. Meyer explores the often misleading concepts and terms that have become embedded in society and tend to dictate our policy making, as well as the language, social and personal goals, and metrics that need to change before the physical transition can begin at the required scale. This book also reviews what nations have been doing thus far in terms of renewables, including the successes and failures in Canada and across the globe. Ontario's green energy fiasco, and a comparison of the different circumstances of Norway and Alberta, for example, are covered as part of the author's comparison of a wide range of countries. What are the achievements, plans, and problems that determine how well different countries are positioned to make "the transition"? The transition path is complex, and the tools we need to develop and the physical infrastructure investments we need to make, are daunting. At some point in time, Canada and Canadians, like all nations, will be living on 100% renewable energy. Whether the social and technological level that endures sees us travelling to the stars, or subsisting at a standard of living more similar to the pre-fossil fuel era, is far from certain.

The contributors argue that rare earths are essential to the information technology revolution on which humans have come to depend for communication, commerce, and, increasingly, engage in conflict. They demonstrate that rare earths are a strategic commodity over which political actors will and do struggle for control.

Water provides benefits as a commodity for agriculture, industry, and households, and as a public good such as fisheries habitat, water quality and recreational use. To aid in cost-benefit analysis under conditions where market determined price signals are usually unavailable, economists have developed a range of alternative valuation methods for measuring economic benefits. This volume provides the most comprehensive exposition to-date of the application of economic valuation methods to proposed water resources investments and policies. It provides a conceptual framework for valuation of both commodity and public good uses of water, addressing non-market valuation techniques appropriate to measuring public benefits - including water quality improvement, recreation, and fish habitat enhancement. The book describes the various measurement methods, illustrates how they are applied in practice, and discusses their strengths, limitations, and appropriate roles. In this second edition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated, and in particular the coverage of water markets and valuation of ecosystem services from water has been expanded. Robert Young, author of the 2005 edition, has been joined for this new edition by John Loomis, who brings additional expertise on ecosystem services and the environmental economics of water for recreational and other public good uses of water.

Russia offers a fascinating example of the contrast between the attractions of a vast hydrocarbon resource base to major oil and gas companies and the problems that can be encountered in trying to invest in it. International Partnership in Russia provides a unique insight into the joint ventures which have been formed between domestic and international partners in Russia during the post-Soviet era. It outlines the highs and lows in their fortunes and analyses the reasons for their successes and failures, developing an original theory on the bargaining relationship between foreign and domestic partners in a weak institutional environment such as Russia. It provides a new strategy for partner engagement based on theoretical analysis, interviews with key players and the experiences of one of the authors at Russia's largest international partnership to date, TNK-BP. This book will be indispensable reading for energy economists, senior executives at oil and gas companies with exposure to Russia and other countries where local knowledge is vital for success, as well as for finance practitioners working in energy markets.

The interlinked issues of air pollution and energy policies in an enlarged Europe are currently subjects of major interest in economic, environmental, geography and regional sciences. This interest is understandable given the considerable consequences on human health and on climate change issues at not only a European, but a global level. In addition, the recent effects of economic fluctuation and oil prices as well as the actual restructuring of the European energy supply and security market raise a great deal of policy challenges. These issues have become an increasingly relevant concern, as the optimal design of policy by centralised European institutions has come under greater scrutiny.

This book presents an integrated approach to recent regulations on air pollution with particular emphasis on transborder air pollution, climate change and energy policies in the new Europe. This integrated vision embraces the extent to which global pollution influences policy decisions at different institutional levels; the magnitude, by virtue of policy simulation analysis, of environmental policy tools (i.e. environmental taxes) on aggregate welfare and transboundary air emissions fluxes in light of the recent enlargement process; the European Trading System and its flexible mechanisms to curb carbon emissions and fulfil the European Union Kyoto Protocol s commitments; and the developments of the new European energy strategy and its interdependencies across energy requirements, innovation, competitiveness and climate change.

The book is primarily aimed at Postgraduates and Postdoctoral research students in economics, environmental economics, environmental sciences, or environmental policy disciplines. However, it should also be of interest to environmental economists, energy policy analysts, members of governmental and non-governmental agencies dealing with environmental policy, climate change or air pollution."

As demand for fresh water rises, together with population, water scarcity already features on the national security agenda of many countries. In this book, Dinardevelops a theory to explain solutions to property rights conflicts over shared rivers. Through systematic analysis of available treaty texts, corresponding side-payment and cost-sharing patterns are gleaned. Geographic and economic variables are used to explain recurring property rights outcomes.

Rather than focusing on a specific river or particular geographic region, the book analyzes numerous rivers, dictated by the large number of treaty observations, and is able to test several hypotheses, devising general conclusions about the manner in which states resolve their water disputes. Policy implications are thereby also gained. While the book simultaneously considers conflict and cooperation along international rivers, it is the focus on negotiated agreements, and their embodied side-payment and cost-sharing regimes, that justifies the use of particular independent variables.

This book aims to explore the avenue of landscape economics and provides the building blocks (from different scientific disciplines) for an economic analysis of landscapes. What exactly constitutes and determines the value of a landscape? It focuses on the value of landscapes in its broadest sense, thereby covering a variety of topics including stakeholder involvement in landscape design, landscape governance and landscape perceptions from different countries. Merely saying that landscapes have value or are important is not sufficient - not when resources are scarce and have alternative uses. Measuring and quantifying the economic value of changes in landscapes would help ensure that landscape management decisions are both (economically) rational and sound.

The first edition of this important work was the winner of the 2002 Publication of Enduring Quality award by the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. The continuing premise for the book is that estimates of the economic values of environmental and natural resource services are essential for effective policy-making. As previous editions, the third edition, which includes two additional co-authors, presents a comprehensive treatment of the theory and methods involved in estimating environmental benefits.

Researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners will welcome the work as an up-to-date reference on recent developments. Students will gain a better understanding of the contribution that economics as a discipline can make to decisions concerning pollution control and human health, recreation, environmental amenities, and other critical issues concerning the way we use and interact with environmental and natural resource systems. To reflect recent progress in both the theory and practice of non-market valuation, the third edition includes more details on empirical approaches to measurement, expanded discussion of the reasons for divergence between "willingness to pay" and "willingness to accept compensation," and increased coverage of econometric issues encountered in estimation. In keeping with its cutting edge orientation, it also includes more discussion of survey design, equilibrium sorting models, and the implications of behavioral economics for welfare measurements and benefit cost analysis.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's (1906-94) most original contribution is his bioeconomic theory. Based on a profound rethinking of the foundations of neoclassical economics, bioeconomics represents a completely new paradigm compared to both the standard and the Marxist approach. Opening economics to natural sciences led Georgescu-Roegen to point out the bio-physical limits to growth. In the last years of his life, he also criticised the sustainable development paradigm, but his criticism disappeared together with him, only to re-emerge recently, thanks to the research on his archiveand to the interest for his viewpoints within the framework of 'degrowth'. In his last years Georgescu-Roegen intended to publish a text entitled Bioeconomics, as an initial systematic arrangement of this doctrine. This book aims to pick up that project in two ways: first, collecting Goergescu-Roegen's main contributions to bioeconomic theory, some still unpublished, and tackling the principal nubs of the discipline particularly the criticism of sustainable development. Second, recuperating that full multidisciplinarity that represents the profoundest characteristic of the bioeconomic theory. The concluding essay is now considered a cornerstone of the degrowth perspective.

Water provides benefits as a commodity for agriculture, industry, and households, and as a public good such as fisheries habitat, water quality and recreational use. To aid in cost-benefit analysis under conditions where market determined price signals are usually unavailable, economists have developed a range of alternative valuation methods for measuring economic benefits. This volume provides the most comprehensive exposition to-date of the application of economic valuation methods to proposed water resources investments and policies. It provides a conceptual framework for valuation of both commodity and public good uses of water, addressing non-market valuation techniques appropriate to measuring public benefits - including water quality improvement, recreation, and fish habitat enhancement. The book describes the various measurement methods, illustrates how they are applied in practice, and discusses their strengths, limitations, and appropriate roles. In this second edition, all chapters have been thoroughly updated, and in particular the coverage of water markets and valuation of ecosystem services from water has been expanded. Robert Young, author of the 2005 edition, has been joined for this new edition by John Loomis, who brings additional expertise on ecosystem services and the environmental economics of water for recreational and other public good uses of water.

The major challenge for the current generation of mankind is to develop a shared vision of a future that is both desirable to the vast majority of humanity and ecologically sustainable. Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future offers a broad, critical discussion on what such a future should or can be, with global perspectives written by some of the world's leading thinkers, including: Wendell Berry, Van Jones, Frances Moore Lappe, Peggy Liu, Hunter Lovins, Gus Speth, Bill McKibben, and many more.

National Accounting Matrices of Environmental Accounts (NAMEA) tables are used to analyze a range of environmental pressures and economic data resulting from consumption and production patterns - helping us gain a far better notion of the consequences of individuals', households' and firms' actions for the world we live in. This book deals with the increasingly complex issues of hybrid environmental and economic accounts. The perspective of environmental accounting for the analysis of the relationships between the economic and environmental systems, especially regarding the satellite accounts like NAMEA, is relatively recent, and partly derives from the conceptual and applied deficits that have emerged during the setting up of green GDP or GNP measures as alternative measures of accounting. NAMEA provides a comprehensive and integrated picture of the economic system in association with the environmental system (physical pressures such as emissions) by a sector classification. This book is an integrated collection of complementary papers that revolve around the issue of environment-economic accounting In the first part a historical background and empirical issues related to the NAMEA-type table definitions and estimations open the book, followed by some applications and analyses mainly applied to a sub-national level. The second part opens the window to international case studies for different EU countries and studies with methodological insights. These policy-oriented, original works are primarily from an applied perspective, although theoretical aspects are also fully developed. The book should be of use to Environmental and Ecological economics students and researchers, as well as those studying the more general field of Environment studies.

This authoritative but highly accessible book presents the reader with a powerful framework for understanding the critical role of the energy return on investment (EROI) in the survival and well-being of individuals, ecosystems, businesses, economies and nations. Growth and development are fundamental and ubiquitous processes at all scales, from individuals to food crops to national economies. While we are all familiar with the concepts of economic growth and living standards as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), we often take for granted the energy use that underpins GDP and our expectations for year-on-year growth. In this book, you will learn how these measures of "progress" are completely dependent on the balance that can be achieved between energy costs (inputs) and gains. Nothing is made or moved without an energy surplus, and it is the EROI of available energy sources more than any other single factor that determines the shape of civilization. Nearly all politics and economics assume that policy and market forces are the levers upon which future outcomes will hinge. However, this book presents many examples of historical and current events that can be explained much more clearly from an energetic perspective. In addition, a future scenario is developed that gives a central place to EROI in assessing the potential of governmental and private initiatives to substitute so-called renewable energy sources for diminishing stocks of fossil fuels. When cheap fossil fuels are no longer available in the abundance needed to mask economic problems and power business as usual, it will be EROI more than the plethora of "green" technologies that creates the boundary conditions for a sustainable future.

Revealed Biodiversity: An Economic History of the Human Impact aims to show that for several centuries environmental conditions have been substantially the product of economic fluctuations. It contests the notion of perpetual decline in species composition. The arguments are supported by far more precise historical detail than is usual in books about ecology. The need to take the gains to human society into account when assessing environmental change is strongly emphasized. The book features case studies including England, the Netherlands, USA, East Asia, Brazil, and the areas of modern agricultural 'land grab'.This book is important for its close attention to the documented historical record of environmental change in several countries over several centuries; for its demonstration of how much wildlife populations have been influenced by fluctuations in market activity; for revealing the need to be sensitive to historical baselines; and for emphasizing the imperative of taking the gains to human society into account when assessing environmental change. It, therefore, has considerable significance for environmental and conservation policies as well as for future studies in ecological history.

In today's global 'commercial society' an inquiry into the economic role of government is gaining momentum. Many crucial goods for the well-being of a society are not 'commercial': national security and clean air are good examples. This means that the economic role of government is not limited to cure so-called 'market failures' but it has to provide for non-commercial goods. Unfortunately in the last few decades the decline of the political-economic culture of Western post-industrial societies has left scope for people to blindly believe in a free, deregulated market.

This book brings the culture of the state in from the cold, by confronting readers at the start with the necessity of recognizing the fundamental difference between private commercial interests, whose provision rests on the culture of profit, and public shared interests, whose provision rests on the culture of the state. This book also explores how much individual well-being depends on both.

The only chance for public shared interests, with their non-profit nature, to successfully keep their ground in the face of the overwhelming power of private commercial/financial interests, lies in regenerating a political-economic state culture whereby governments and policy-makers/politicians understand their responsibility and social function to consist primarily in pursuing the satisfaction of the former and not in acting on behalf of the latter.

The book reveals the changing dynamics of the helium industry on both the supply-side and the demand-side. The helium industry has a long-term future and this important gas will have a role to play for many decades to come. Major new users of helium are expected to enter the market, especially in nuclear energy (both fission and fusion). Prices and volumes supplied and expected to rise and this will prompt greater efforts towards the development of new helium sources and helium conservation and recycling.

When first published in 1997, Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use by renowned economic and engineering experts Ernst von Weizsacker, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, transformed how economists, policy makers, engineers, entrepreneurs and business leaders thought about innovation and wealth creation. Through examples from a wide range of industrial sectors, the authors demonstrated how technical innovation could cut resource use in half while doubling wealth. Now twelve years on, with climate change at the top of the world agenda and the new economic giants of China and India needing ever more resources, there is a unique historic opportunity to scale up resources productivity and radically transform the global economy. And Factor Five is the book set to change all of this. Picking up where Factor Four left off, this new book examines the past 15 years of innovation in industry, technical innovation and policy. It shows how and where factor four gains have been made and how we can achieve greater factor five or 80%+ improvements in resource and energy productivity and how to roll them out on a global scale to retool our economic system, massively boost wealth for billions of people around the world and help solve the climate change crises. Spanning dozens of countries including China and India and examining innumerable cases of innovation in design, technology and policy, the authors leave no engineering and economic stone unturned in their quest for excellence. The book tackles sustainable development and climate change by providing in depth Factor 5 resource productivity studies of the following sectors: Buildings, Industry, Agriculture, Food and Hospitality, and Transportation. In its systematic approach to demonstrating how Factor 5 can be achieved, the book also provides an overview of energy/water nexus and energy/materials nexus efficiency opportunities across these sectors. Given that these sectors are responsible for virtually all energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions globally, this book is designed to guide everyone from individual households, businesses, industry sector groups to national governments in their efforts to achieve the IPCC recommended target of 80 per cent reductions to greenhouse gas emissions. It also looks at innovation in regulation to increase resource productivity, pricing, carbon trading, eco-taxation and permits and the role of international institutions and trade. The authors also explain exciting new concepts such as bio-mimicry and whole system design, as hallmarks for a new generation of technologies. The last part of the book explores transformative ideas such as a long term trajectory of gently rising energy and resource prices, and new concepts of well-being in a more equitable world. Like its predecessor this book is simply the most important work on the future of innovation, business, economics and policy and is top drawer reading for leaders across all sectors including business and industry, government, engineering and design and teaching. This book is full colour throughout. Published with The Natural Edge Project

For decades, governments have tried to foster industrial competitiveness and economic growth. Many instruments are known to work, and many lessons have been learned. However, humanity is increasingly feeling the effects of natural resource depletion. The rate of this depletion is deeply unsustainable, and it is - as of yet - inextricably linked to economic growth and development. To preserve acceptable living conditions for future generations, while at the same time creating these conditions for millions of poor in the first place, we must achieve a de-linking of economic activity and resource depletion. This book identifies the drivers and success factors of green industrial policy, which seeks to reconcile the synergies and trade-offs which exist between economic and environmental goals. Greening the economy is a goal which will require enormous investment. As markets are currently failing to provide the required incentives for environmental sustainability, governments must intervene and provide 'policy rents' for investments in sustainability while withdrawing rents from polluting investments. In this they will face the risk of political capture by interest groups and difficult choices among technologies. Rent management is therefore the heart of green industrial policy and the focus of this book. On top of this, the country examples provided in this volume focus on the emerging powers, which will have an important influence the future of our planet. However, the lessons learned are valuable not only for countries introducing green industrial policies for the first time, but also for those under pressure to reform existing policies. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and policymakers in the areas of energy policy, sustainable development, industrial economics and ecological economics.

This book studies the limits imposed by the depletion of fossil fuels and the requirements of climate stabilization on economic growth with a focus on China. The book intends to examine the potentials of various energy resources, including oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, and other renewables, as well as energy efficiency. Unlike many other books on the subject, this book intends to argue that, despite the large potentials of renewable energies and energy efficiency, economic growth eventually will have to be brought to an end as China and the world undertake the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies. China has overtaken the US to become the world's largest energy consumer and greenhouse gas emitter. Their energy consumption is dominated by coal and China now accounts for one quarter of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, China is set to become the world's largest oil importer in the next decade. This book will consider energy development in the broader context of economic and social changes, especially the historical dynamics of the capitalist world system. Historical lessons of capitalism and socialism will be discussed. The book will evaluate the implications of ecological limits to growth on the economic system and argue that the existing capitalist system is fundamentally incompatible with ecological sustainability.

Do you really think you are getting a good deal when given that free mobile phone for switching service providers, if a multinational retailer undercuts its competitors or by the fact that food is relatively cheaper today in many countries than ever before? Think again! As Michael Carolan clearly shows in this compelling book, cheapness is an illusion. The real cost of low prices is alarmingly high. It is shown for example that citizens are frequently subsidising low prices through welfare support to poorly-paid workers in their own country, or relying on the exploitation of workers in poor countries for cheap goods. Environmental pollution may not be costed into goods and services, but is paid for indirectly by people living away from its source or by future generations. Even with private cars, when the total costs of this form of mobility are tallied it proves to be an astronomically expensive model of transportation. All of these costs need to be accounted for. The author captures these issues by the concept of "cheaponomics". The key point is that costs and risks are socialised: we all pay for cheapness, but not at the point of purchase. Drawing on a wide range of examples and issues from over-consumption and waste to over-work, unemployment, inequality, and the depersonalising of communities, it is convincingly shown that cheapness can no longer be seen as such a bargain. Instead we need to refocus for a better sense of well-being, social justice and a balanced approach to prosperity.

By providing a theoretical analysis for the issues of climate change, carbon emission mitigation, energy-saving and low-carbon development, this book develops a new branch of economics known as Low-carbon Economics. It explores economic theories, analysis methodologies, measurements, indexes and business models for the low-carbon economy. It is an important source of reference for researchers and government officers on policy design and low-carbon city planning.

To understand China's climate change policy is not easy, as the country itself is a paradox actor in global climate political economy: it used to take very suspicious stand on the scientific certainty of climate change, but recently it has become a signatory and firm supporter of the Kyoto Protocol; it stubbornly refuses to accept any emission cutting obligations, but has gradually taken the lead in developing renewable energies and carbon trading business; it accuses western countries of their hypocrisy and irresponsibility, but ironically maintains close cooperation with them on low-carbon projects; it fears climate mitigation commitments may hamper the economic growth, but meanwhile spends most lavishly on the research and development of clean energy and other green technologies. This book, unlike other researches which explain China's climate policy from pure economics or politics/foreign policy perspectives, provides a panoramic view over China's climate-related regulations, laws and policies as well as various government and non-government actors involved in the climate politics. Through analyzing the political and socioeconomic factors that influence the world's largest carbon emitter's participation into the global collective actions against climate change, the book argues that as a vast continental state with a mix of authoritarian politics and a quasi-liberalised market economy, China's climate policy process is fragmented and self-defensive, seemingly having little room for significant compromises or changes; yet in response to the mounting international pressures and energy security concerns and attracted by lucrative carbon businesses and clean energy market, the regime shows some sort of better-than-expected flexibility and shrewdness in coping with the newly-emerged challenges. Its future climate actions, whether effective or not, are vital not only for the success of the global mitigation effort, but for China's own economic restructure and sustainable development. The book is a unique research monograph on the evolving domestic and foreign policies taken by the Chinese government to tackle climate change challenges. It concludes that instead of being motivated by concern about its vulnerability to climate change, Chinese climate-related policies have been mainly driven by its intensive attention to energy security, business opportunities lying in emerging green industries and image consideration in the global climate politics.