¹ United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC): 1992, Article 2, text available at http://www.unfccc.int.

² We focus on carbon dioxide emissions given their sheer volume and contribution to climate change but we should note, of course, that carbon dioxide is not the only greenhouse gas.

³ Hepburn, Cameron, ‘Carbon trading: a review of the Kyoto mechanisms', Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 32 (2007), 375–393CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁵ For an overview of the EU ETS see the special issue of Climate Policy, vol.6 no.1 (2006).

⁶ Global Times, ‘Five provinces, eight cities selected for gas-emission cut off’, 11 August 2010. http://business.globaltimes.cn/china-economy/2010-08/562368.html

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⁹ Enforcement requires independently verified measurements of emissions (with sensors or flowmeters) or independent calculations of those emissions based on the measured output produced and its emissions intensity, coupled with spot checks by verification agencies.

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¹³ Ibid., 176: cf 176–178.

¹⁴ Ibid., 178–179.

¹⁵ Ibid., 179.

¹⁶ Andre ‘Blocked Exchanges’, 179–180.

¹⁷ Machiavelli, The Discourses (Middlesex: Penguin, [1531] 1970) edited with an introduction by Bernard Crick, Book 1, Discourse 43, 218Google Scholar.

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¹⁹ The case of voting rights has an extra complication for one might think that although it is a benefit to the citizen it also comes with a duty too (for example, to cast it in the public interest) and that this duty in part explains why it should not be transferred.

²⁰ Andre ‘Blocked Exchanges’, 180–187.

²¹ This table captures, we hope, the logical possibilities but it obviously does not describe all the kinds of issues that might arise under the various headings. For excellent discussion of the kinds of issues that arise and the relevant normative consideration see Satz, Debra, Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² For an excellent discussion of arguments against markets in permits ‘to pollute’ see Goodin, Robert ‘Selling Environmental Indulgences’, Kyklos 47:4 (1994), 573–596CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a contrary view and response see Beckerman, Wilfred and Pasek, Joanna ‘The Morality of Market Mechanisms to Control Pollution’, World Economy 4:3 (2003), 191–207Google Scholar.

²³ Wiggins ‘A Reasonable Frugality’ this volume.

²⁴ For this line of reasoning see also Goodin ‘Selling Environmental Indulgences’, 578–579.

²⁵ For further discussion see Caney, ‘Markets, Morality and Climate Change: What, if anything, is Wrong with Emissions Trading?', New Political Economy 15:2 (2010), 204–205CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Caney, ‘Justice, Morality and Carbon Trading’, Ragion Pratica 32 (2009)Google Scholar for a discussion of this and other anti-market arguments.

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²⁷ For example, Barry, Brian writes that ‘those alive at any time are custodians rather than owners of the planet, and ought to pass it on in at least no worse shape than they found it in’, ‘Justice Between Generations’ in Liberty and Justice: Essays in Political Theory Volume 2 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 258Google Scholar. For discussion of the concepts of ‘stewardship’ and ‘trusteeship’ see Attfield, RobinEnvironmental Ethics (Cambridge: Polity, 2003) chapter 2Google Scholar and Attfield The Ethics of the Global Environment (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), chapter 3Google ScholarPubMed.

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²⁹ Passmore, JohnMan's Responsibility for Nature: Ecological Problems and Western Traditions (London: Duckworth, 1974), 73Google Scholar.

³⁰ Passmore Man's Responsibility for Nature, 101.

³¹ We are grateful to Luc Bovens for raising this objection.

³² Note, incidentally, that this argument does not object solely or even primarily to the ‘trading’ of permits. Rather its concern seems to be with a system which distributes ‘rights to use the atmosphere’ whether or not they are tradeable.

³³ Michael Sandel has given this kind of argument. See ‘Should we Buy the Right to Pollute?’, 95. Sandel's argument against emissions trading is a part of a more general civic republican concern about the role of markets and the way they encroach into many domains in human life. See Sandel, Michael J.Justice: What's the Right Thing to do? (London: Penguin Books, 2009), 84–91Google Scholar and his discussion of ‘republican citizenship’ in Sandel ‘What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values delivered at Brasenose College, Oxford, May 11 and 12, 1998, 107ff. This is available at: http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/documents/sandel00.pdf (last accessed on 8 September 2010). See also his first Reith Lecture (‘Markets and Morals’) at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kt7rg (last accessed on 8 September 2010).

³⁴ For further discussion see Caney ‘Markets, Morality and Climate Change’, 208.

³⁵ Waldron, Jeremy, ‘Money and Complex Equality' in Pluralism, Justice, and Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995) edited by Miller, David and Walzer, Michael, 152Google Scholar. Waldron's statement may overstate the exceptional nature of in-kind contributions. The challenge, nonetheless, remains: we need an argument for the claim that we must discharge our environmental duty in an in-kind form when there are other possibilities.

³⁶ We are grateful to Luc Bovens for raising the objection presented in this paragraph and the example we use to illustrate it.

³⁷ Sandel ‘Should we Buy the Right to Pollute’, 95. See also Goodin's discussion of the related, but distinct, argument that it is wrong to have a scheme that allows ‘some but not all’ to be exempt from some burden or to enjoy some benefit, ‘Selling Environmental Indulgences’, 584–585. How objectionable we find such schemes will depend heavily on whether the allocation of the scarce good is fair.

³⁸ Tobin, James defends restrictions on trade for this reason: ‘On Limiting the Domain of Inequality’, Journal of Law and Economics, 13:2 (1970), 266CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ We are grateful to Luc Bovens for pressing us on this point.

⁴⁰ James Tobin ‘On Limiting the Domain of Inequality’, 271. He makes the same point in a discussion of food vouchers (268).

⁴¹ See Shue, Henry ‘Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions’, Law and Policy 15:1 (1993), 58CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Shue, ‘Climate’ in A Companion to Environmental Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) edited by Jamieson, Dale, 455–456Google Scholar. This kind of argument is also endorsed by Hyams, ‘A Just Response to Climate Change: Personal Carbon Allowances and the Normal-Functioning Approach’, Journal of Social Philosophy 40:2 (2009), 244CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also 243–244 for further discussion where Hyams discusses what we term the Paternalism and the Unreliable Trustee Arguments. Hyams appears to think that Shue's claims are a paternalistic claim about whether to prevent individuals from selling their own emission rights. Shue, however, is not discussing individual carbon permits and rejecting them for being paternalistic. His point rather is about the dangers of letting states sell all ‘their’ emissions permits, thereby jeopardising the needs of their citizens. See also Shue ‘Equity and Social Considerations related to Climate Change’, Papers presented at the IPCC Working Group III Workshop on Equity and Social Considerations Related to Climate Change, Nairobi, Kenya 18–22 July (1994) especially 389.

⁴² Shue ‘Subsistence Emissions and Luxury Emissions’, 58 and ‘Climate’, 455.

⁴³ On the moral limits of state sovereignty see Caney, SimonJustice Beyond Borders: A Global Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), chapter 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁴ What about states that do not deny their subjects the emissions needed for a decent standard of living but which nonetheless distribute them unjustly? This raises a number of complex issues that we cannot hope to resolve here. Much depends on factors such as (i) whether emissions trading with this unjust state improves or worsens the condition of the unjustly treated within that state at all, (ii) whether withholding trade incentivises the unjust government to engage in reform or whether, by contrast, engaging in trade is a more effective way of encouraging improvements, and (iii) how much weight we accord to self-determination as compared with securing an internally just distributions. See, further, Caney Justice Beyond Borders, chapter 5 and 7.

⁴⁵ For further discussion see Caney ‘Markets, Morality and Climate Change’, 206.

⁴⁶ Sandel ‘Should we Buy the Right to Pollute?’, 94.

⁴⁷ Ibid., 95.

⁴⁸ Ibid., 94–95. See also Goodin ‘Selling Environmental Indulgences’, 581–583.

⁴⁹ For an interesting study of how people may treat what are intended as fines as if they were fees see Gneezy, Uri and Rustichini's, Aldo well-known paper ‘A Fine is a Price’, Journal of Legal Studies 29:1 (2000), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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