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Business and Climate Policy: Potentials and Pitfalls of Private Voluntary Programs / Karsten Ronit, ed., United Nations University Press, 2012, 276 p., ISBN-13: 978-92-808-1214-5Presentation (© UN University Press) :Climate change has become one of the most important and challenging global policy fields. Attention has focused primarily on the successes and failures of states and intergovernmental organizations, but many more actors are involved and contribute to solutions. Business, often seen as spurring climate change, harbors considerable potential for problem solving. Today, a rich variety of private voluntary programs address climate change.Private voluntary programs are private in the sense that they are initiated by and made up of businesses. They are voluntary in the sense that businesses are free to join or leave them, and they are programs in that a variety of formal rules, resources, and bodies are often established to administer and evaluate the schemes.Business and Climate Policy assesses the potentials and pitfalls of existing private voluntary programs. The contributors evaluate how effectively different programs meet public and private goals at the national and international levels, and across industries. The “lessons learned” presented in this book can help to design new programs and improve those in existence. Such lessons are relevant not only within climate policy, but also within the many other policy fields in which private voluntary programs are active.Contents :Part I: IntroductionMarrying climate policy and private voluntary programs, Karsten RonitPart II: Cross-sectoral and multisectoral programsPrivate voluntary programs in environmental governance: Climate change and the financial sector, Jennifer Clapp and Jason ThistlethwaitePrivate voluntary programs on climate change: US federal government as the sponsoring actor, Lily Hsueh and Aseem PrakashPart III: SectorsThe role of private voluntary climate programs affecting forests: Assessing their direct and intersecting effects, Laura Bozzi, Benjamin Cashore, Kelly Levin and Constance McDermottEmerging private voluntary programs and climate change: The blind spots of the agrifood sector, Doris Fuchs and Frederike BollClimate change, private voluntary programs and the automobile industry, Tony PorterPart IV: ConclusionsPrivate voluntary programs in climate policy: Potentials and pitfalls, Karsten Ronit