Carbon trading: saving the environment by monetising it?

... plants and gas burning facilities can then decide if they want to reduce their emissions by, say, implementing cleaning technologies such as scrubbers, or by buying more pollution allowances from those who have some left (thus the policy is also known as carbon trading). In others words, the government just decides the amount of CO2 emissions which is set to decrease year-on-year thus slowing down climate change, and market players are free to choose who, how, and when is going to implement cleaner technologies. The upside of cap-and-trade systems is that emission reductions are supposed to happen where they are cheapest: if reducing emissions ...