I would never have imagined that a story about young environmental activists navigating carbon markets – in all their technical, political and philosophical complexity – could be so gripping, informative, and hopeful. The small victories and repeated setbacks ring true, as I know from my own experience of trying to make markets and business work for people and planet.

Josh Bishop, University of Sydney, former chief economist, IUCN.

If there ever was an “eco-thriller” in book format, this would be it. The Carbon Paradox is a bold and imaginative piece that invites readers into the messy realities behind climate solutions and the communities around them. Rather than offer neat answers, it challenges readers to think and see the emotional entanglements that have created today’s rules and the tension that this presents. This book is a must-read for all practitioners working on climate solutions and certainly a must-read for all senior decision makers.

Mahua Acharya, CEO, International Energy Transition Platform

The chapter ‘The Nature Paradox’ brilliantly captures a fundamental market failure that can no longer remain unresolved: That forest conservation only receives funding while under threat, and reforestation loses financial support once trees mature… When protection becomes economically dependent on perpetual danger a shift from crisis-reactive to value-positive frameworks is due… Sustainable nature finance must move beyond temporary carbon sequestration toward comprehensive natural capital valuation that recognizes the ongoing ecosystem services and biodiversity value of mature forests… To fix nature – we need to think further. Of that, the book makes a very convincing case.

Prof. Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey, Founder & Co-CEO, The Landbanking Group

It is extremely difficult to write a good story which is also educational. It’s even harder when the subject you’re trying to educate about is as complicated and controversial as carbon markets. But Zwick, Heuberger, and Hirsbrunner manage to pull it off, with a story that makes sense in its own right and with the various perspectives on the topic given the weight and fair hearing they deserve. The core conceit — that effective climate action requires us to accept and live with a variety of paradoxes — works extremely well as a way of understanding both the validity of differing points of view and the way we can still move forward in a climate crisis.

Nathan Truitt, Executive Vice President of Climate Funding, American Forest Foundation

For years my mother has told me she never really understood what I do.
Carbon markets, CO₂ credits, projects in Africa ,I tried to explain, but with little success.

Now, finally, there is a book that makes this world accessible: The Carbon Paradox, by Renat Heuberger , Steve Zwick, and Marco Hirsbrunner.

It’s a novella with a rare quality: it is immediate, clear, and brings to the broader public a subject that is both complex and controversial.
If an Italian version comes out, I will give it to my mother and I am sure she will finally understand what this market is about.
Congratulations to the authors for opening the door to a conversation that matters. We need to talk more openly about these paradoxes if we want to improve the carbon market.

Andrea Maggiani, Founder, Carbonsink

The Carbon Paradox is an imaginative exploration of the contradictions and challenges inherent in global climate action. By blending storytelling with economic insights that are hard for even grad students to digest—such as Pigovian principles and the pricing of externalities—the authors illuminate the complexities of carbon finance and the urgent need for collaboration across stakeholders. The psychic scars and personal experiences that the authors have earned and lived in their long tenure in the fields of environmental markets and sustainable development are complemented by the wisdom and tolerance they’ve managed to retain despite the halting progress we’ve made on climate. These values, and the cooperation and collaboration needed to address climate change through imperfect but impactful solutions, are needed now more than ever. A vital and timely read, this book offers a hopeful vision for addressing climate change. Let’s hope we get there!

Prof. Charles E. Bedford,
School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Co-Founder, Carbon Growth Partners

The Carbon Paradox is a genre-bending triumph—blending fiction and deep expertise to illuminate the messy realities of climate finance. By following the journey of three idealistic students, the book makes the intricate world of global carbon markets not just accessible, but emotionally urgent. Drawing on decades of real-world experience (two of the authors are co-founders of South Pole), it brings to life the paradoxes that stall climate action—and the urgent need to act anyway. A vital, timely guide for navigating complexity with courage and hope.

Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Ferraro, Professor of Strategic Management, IESE Business School

The Carbon Paradox von Renat Heuberger:
Ein super Buch von einem großen Kenner der Thematik.
Ich empfehle allen Interessierten das Buch zu einem detaillierten Studium. Das Lesen lohnt sich – Mehrwert ist garantiert.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Dr. h.c. Franz Josef Rademacher, Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing

Renat, Steve, and Marco cut through the noise to expose the contradictions at the heart of today’s carbon markets. The Carbon Paradox is a timely call to confront the tensions in our work, while continuing to press forward with urgency and resolve.

Thibault Sorret, CEO, Equitable Earth

Renat chose fiction to tell the truth — and it works. In The Carbon Paradox, Terrania’s absurdities ring truer than official reports. Read this, and you’ll understand carbon in a way no manual delivers — and that may be the greatest paradox of all.

Tanjung Sentosa, Executive Chairman, AZEI (Zero Emission Indonesia Association)

I’ve never read anything like it! And the lesson here is bigger than literature. If climate communication is to move beyond the “carbon bubble,” it must learn to carry paradox, emotion, and ambiguity without collapsing under them. Technical arguments rarely stir the heart. Stories can.

Vilhelmiina Vulli, Head of Media, illuminem

A clearsighted perspective about the impact and the paradoxes inherent in carbon markets, told through an engaging story. This fun and insightful book will be an eye opener to many.

Josep Oriol-Bosch, Managing Partner, Okavango Capital Partners

Highly original—Heuberger, Zwick, and Hirsbrunner take the dry and thorny topic of carbon credits, and make it fun, and even bingeable.

Jonah Busch, Ph.D., Co-author, Why Forests? Why Now? The Science, Economics, and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change

Yin and Yang. The world works entirely based on Paradoxes. It is on this base The Carbon Paradox threads. Carbon market is a solution, but cannot be treated as the entire one. Indeed, it even has some drawbacks, otherwise it becomes a license to pollute or a greenwash. It cannot, and will never, be a replacement for real reduction. Being written as a fiction is a fresh approach. A must read!

Agus Sari, CEO, Landscape Group Indonesia

Carbon Paradox is a must-read for anyone who wants to engage in a serious and informed conversation about carbon finance—beyond the noise of simplistic one-liners and misinformation. It offers clear, honest insights that help readers develop the right mindset and vision to recognize one of today’s greatest tools and opportunities for restoring and regenerating our planet.

Antoine Geerinckx, Co-founder, CO2logic, Airscan, Greentripper, GoForest, Positive Impact Team

The Carbon Paradox is my favorite type of fiction – set in very recent history, full of anecdotes resembling my life and spiked with reflections on international climate cooperation. The authors do an excellent job to walk the reader through a journey resembling their own biographies, with a little optimistic spin. Due to its narrower focus on a specific element of global climate architecture it gets deeper into the weeds and mechanics of how things actually work (or don’t) than “Ministry for the Future”, making The Carbon Paradox a must read for aspiring and senior carbon people.

Tim Reutemann, COO, ClimateGains

If you think it is hard, or maybe even impossible, to make the world of carbon credits and carbon markets interesting and engaging, well think again: Steve Zwick, Renat Heuberger and Marco Hirsbrunner have done it and done it in style in their new book “Carbon Paradox”. The book is part fable, part hero’s journey, part documentary and part thriller. Honestly, I don’t know how they came up with this chimera, but it works. Not only do you learn about the difficult and nuanced world of carbon markets, but you do so via a thoroughly enjoyable read. No book that I can think of captures the facts, the details and the drama surrounding carbon markets quite as well as this one does. I have no doubt that if we are to address not only climate change but also many of the other environmental crises of our day —loss of biodiversity, water scarcity, pollution— that we will have to invent markets like the carbon markets to do so. This book shows us why it is so difficult to do this, but also why it is essential and, perhaps most importantly, it helps us understand how it might be done. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me: a book like this could only be written by three of the OG veterans in the space. Steve, Renat and Marco have decades of experience with these markets, and the scars to prove it. If you read only one book on carbon markets this year, let it be this one.

Ricardo Bayon, Partner and Co-founder, Encourage Capital and Adjunct Professor, Brown University

Carbon markets and climate finance remain clouded by confusion—even among the so-called carbon cognoscenti. The Carbon Paradox doesn’t pretend to offer neat solutions, but it does succeed in making the waters clearer (or at least less muddy), while entertaining and inspiring the reader. What makes this book stand out is that it’s both an easy, enjoyable read and an honest reckoning with the paradoxes that slow and inhibit climate action. For those of us working in the trenches, it is also encouraging—reminding us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it may be closer than we think.

Dr. Alexandra Soezer, Director, Climate Action Center of Excellence

If there is ever to be a solution to the global challenge of climate change, the ‘carbon paradox’ points a way forward. Not from an ivory tower, but on the basis of many years of experience, which has often been fraught with frustration. It is admirable that this has now become the driving force behind this book.
Renat and I have worked together in the past to strengthen international climate action and will continue to do so. It would be great if this book had the positive impact that the matter requires.

Prof. Dr. Estelle Herlyn, FOM University of Applied Science and FAW/n Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing, Initiator of the Development and Climate Alliance together with the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development

The Carbon Paradox is not only highly readable and gripping—it is truly innovative. By weaving real-world paradoxes into a compelling story, it reshapes how we think about the challenges of CO₂ emissions. A brilliant analytical lens meets a powerful narrative. For me, reading it was both inspiring and deeply enriching.

Prof. Gregor Dorfleitner,
Professor of Finance, University of Regensburg

Our greatest challenge is that farmers don’t speak finance; finance doesn’t speak farmer; and neither speaks high-level COP jargon. The Carbon Paradox brings to life critical issues within the climate arena and uses storytelling to crystalize the complexity that’s lost behind sensationalist headlines. Through the power of storytelling, this book bridges worlds — smallholder farmers and financiers, the Global North and the Global South, policy and practice — in a way we urgently need. Whilst fictional, perhaps we can gain insights of how to connect the suits with the money to the boots on the ground. Only by breaking this critical bottleneck will we drive meaningful and lasting impact.

Chiyedza Heri, Founder and CEO, Ubuntu Alliance

The Carbon Paradox is a fresh, refreshing, and surprisingly fun take on how to move us to action through a wild ride, semi-autobiographical allegorical MUST READ TODAY adventure!

Lisa Neuberger Fernandez, Social Entrepreneur and Professor of Strategy, IE Business School

The Carbon Paradox is thought-provoking, captivating, and refreshingly innovative. While it is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of carbon markets, its relevance extends far beyond that sphere. Renat, Marco, and Steve provide a timely and much-needed intellectual guide for navigating the complexities, tensions, and trade-offs we must confront in the transition toward a more sustainable, equitable, and just world.

Florian Reber, Senior Vice President, Business Development & Partnerships, Chloris Geospatial

The Carbon Paradox is a timely, disarming fable about the messy, necessary work of climate finance. Through a lean cast and two imagined countries, it turns 25 familiar controversies into a single, human story, and then points us forward. It recognises the paradoxes in carbon markets without feeding cynicism, championing regulation, transparency, accountability, and a pragmatic portfolio of solutions that includes nature. Most of all, it argues we should act fast under clear rules, improving continuously. For those of us building trust in high-integrity nature-based solutions, I found this useful narrative scaffolding – clear on trade-offs, allergic to absolutism, and hopeful about what cross-sector coalitions can deliver together.

Jen Stebbing, Climate and Nature Communications

In ‘The Carbon Paradox,’ Heuberger, Hirsbrunner and Zwick boldly illuminate the uncomfortable paradoxes at the heart of carbon finance, addressing questions we can no longer afford to shy away from. I especially appreciate their local emphasis – transforming forest communities from mere aid recipients into active providers of ecosystem services. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in honest, community-led climate solutions for the carbon market.

Jeremy Freund, Chief Technology Officer, Wildlife Works

The book perfectly captures the dreams, the intentions, the tension, the hope, the conflicts, the will for action in the face of imperfection. I loved that the story captures the complexity of the world and different forces at work (environmental aspects, political aspects, market dynamics, public/private interplay, financial/entrepreneurial angle, social justice and redistribution considerations..) as well as the inner questions of the 3 main characters, who sometimes end up doubting their own ideas in the face of ongoing challenges and obstacles.
Many paradoxes remain, I think some of them only grew and fully revealed themselves over time. But that doesn’t make the carbon market any less necessary or relevant, at least until there is “something better.” To date, I have not seen it.

Giulia Gervasoni, Executive Director Sustainability and Climate Risk,
UBS and first Commercial Director at South Pole

If you want to understand everything that matters about carbon and environmental markets—while actually enjoying the ride—The Carbon Paradox is the book. No one is better placed to tell this story than Renat, who didn’t just witness this market’s birth, but helped build it from the inside. A rare mix of insider insight, narrative power, and urgency.

Andrea Gori, CEO, illuminem

We keep asking carbon markets to save the world and then act surprised when they behave like… well, markets. This book exposes the paradoxes but still finds a reason to hope.

René Velasquez, Founder, This Week In Carbon

Just woke up in the middle of the night and started reading the book. It’s so tempting to spend the rest of the night finishing it—just like Ella, the protagonist, during her night of discovering carbon credits. My first thought was: “I want to translate this into Vietnamese and publish it, because as many people as possible should read it.” Thank you for turning such a seemingly unremarkable topic into something intriguing, thought-provoking, and even poetic.

Dang Hanh, Co-founder and Managing Director, VNEEC

‘The Carbon Paradox’ is a rare read: entertaining, eye-opening, and quietly educational. You’ll come away smarter without even realizing it. The climate crisis is full of complex trade-offs and paradoxes. This book brings that reality to life through the eyes of three idealistic explorers diving into the world of carbon credits. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to truly understand the messy landscape of climate solutions.

Tillmann Lang, CEO, Inyova Impact Investing

Renat, Steve, Marco: your Five Elements gives us the map. I’d add one more: the Rivers, the liquidity that carries Climate Units from source to sink, so the water can circulate through the whole system. When that river flows, the price of polluting is crystal clear, and the value of reducing, avoiding, and removing it is just as tangible. That’s when the good actors can truly scale.
Your Carbon Paradox work is spot on: integrity without plumbing doesn’t move the needle. “Climate Unit” + a working river system turns artisanal deals into a real global market, just like bananas or tomato.
Upstream, project developers such as Fronterra and many others are “preparing the water” with communities and governments, generating and carrying the flow of future climate units issuance. Downstream, we need liquidity so capital meets outcomes at speed, and the virtuous circle keeps spinning.
And most of all we need stubborn optimists to finish this system, like you. You are builders who push the boundaries while others just burn things down without lighting the way. Keep going. I’m with you. Let’s finish the river so real climate results can finally flow at scale.

Juan Carlos Gonzalez Aybar, CEO, Fronterra

Renat, Steve, and Marco have pulled off something rare and refreshing. They take the thorny, often divisive world of carbon credits and make it not only understandable, but compelling—then layer it with the gripping journey of a ragtag crew of idealists refusing to give up. It’s part carbon credit primer, part adventure story, and altogether truly inspiring. Whether you’re a skeptic or a champion of carbon markets, or simply someone who cares deeply about our planet’s future, this book will leave you both wiser and more determined to keep going, no matter the odds.

David Antonioli, former CEO, Verra (2008-2023) and Founder, Transition Finance

Ok wow!

I just finished it. Honestly, I have to go back to get the complete list of paradoxes.
You guys managed to get the gist of carbon credits in simple terms. I had always been confused by the carbon credits universe, and this book has definitely shed some, if not all, light on the topic.
The emotions I felt while reading the book were across the entire spectrum of emotions that I generally experience when reading the latest news on climate.
Somehow, it’s a timely book. It should result in more activists and realists cropping up, not just in the carbon credits domain.

Dr. Kruthika Eswaran, Climate Researcher