ABSTRACT
The promise is that for a small increase in ticket price, the atmospheric consequences of your holiday or business trip can be ‘neutralised’ by dealings in the carbon markets. Enthusiasts for voluntary offsetting argue that it engages polluters outside of existing regulation in issues of environmental sustainability and provides investment in a range of normatively worthwhile causes, biodiversity conservation, low carbon technology, and human development. The nascent carbon markets enable these transactions by providing a set of institutions and commodities, tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent represented by credits and allowances, to structure this exchange. Credit based systems reward actors for environmental performance that is quantifi able and in some way an improvement on existing norms. The regime authority awards credits based on a particular set of criteria, which may then be traded with other entities to meet their regulatory obligations.
