Jennifer Barone of Discover Magazine delves into the efficacy of the complex trading schemes currently in use such as using offsets in the cap and trade system. What she discovers, in interviews with Michael Wara, David Victor, and others, is that the lack of carbon accounting is largely to blame for the uncertainty of carbon emission reductions both in Europe's trading system and under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.

"The basic idea of the CDM is that you cut emissions in a place like China in lieu of reducing them in Europe.  So we need to be certain that we're really cutting in China. Otherwise the whole goal is undermined." - Michael Wara