NICHOLAS STERN - "'A BLUEPRINT FOR A SAFER PLANET"
This book could have equally have been called “A Blueprint for Copenhagen 2010”. Now, it might seem a bit unfair to comment on a book written before December 2010 in relation to what happened in that month. In Nicholas Stern’s case it is fully justified. As a former Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and of the World Bank and as the author of the UK government’s, globally influential, review of the Economics of Climate Change the author has been deeply involved in shaping policy. The book is well written and the author has the ability to clarify complex issues. One of these is the relative merits and disadvantages of controlling CO2 emissions by a Carbon Tax or by Carbon Trading. With a Carbon Tax you know what it will cost but not how much it will reduce emissions; with Carbon Trading (Cap-and-Trade in the US) you know by how much it will reduce emissions but not what the financial implications are. He also deals with one of the main criticisms of ...