Governments have often been called on to put a price on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions as a way to curb global warming.
Carbon pricing is a powerful — and controversial — tool to capture the external costs of pollutant gases and allow market forces to determine the quantities that are pumped into the atmosphere.
About 40 countries and 20 cities and municipalities around the world have implemented carbon pricing mechanisms or plan to do so in the coming years. So how does it work? And what does it mean?
In the video above, Devex explains just what it entails — the traditional and alternative approaches to pricing carbon, its implications for developing countries and the business case behind the policy that has garnered support from global corporations.
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