Apples for Oranges

Abstract

Over the last decade, there has been a sea change in environmental law and policy, marked by growing interest in market-based instruments of environmental protection. In particular, approaches that explicitly commodify environmental impacts by creating markets for their sale are on the rise. These environmental trading markets (ETMs) now operate in a range of regulatory settings where parties exchange credits to emit air pollutants, extract natural resources, and develop habitat. In fact, every major environmental policy review in the last five years has called for even greater use of ETMs. Markets for environmental commodities represent the new wave of environmental protection and, despite critiques both subtle and shrill, they are still building.