Carbon Neutrality Should Not Be the End Goal: Lessons for Institutional Climate Action From U.S. Higher Education

Aggressive climate action pledges from governments, businesses and institutions have increasingly taken the form of commitments to net carbon neutrality. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are uniquely positioned to innovate in this area, and over 800 U.S. colleges and universities have pledged to achieve net carbon neutrality. Eleven leading U.S. HEIs have already attained this status. Here, we examine their approaches to achieving net carbon neutrality, highlighting risks associated with treating emissions reduction approaches such as carbon offsets, renewable energy certificates, and bioenergy as best practice in isolation from broader policy frameworks. While pursuing net carbon neutrality has led to important institutional shifts toward sustainability, the mix of approaches used by HEIs is out of alignment with a broader U.S. decarbonization roadmap; in aggregate, these carbon neutral schools underutilize electrification and new zero-carbon electricity. We conclude by envisioning how HEIs can refocus climate mitigation efforts towards decarbonization (with net carbon neutrality as a possible milestone), with an emphasis on actions that will help shift policy and markets at larger scales

Is the EU Moving Towards Net Neutrality Legislation?

Speaking to MEPs in Brussels, European Commission VP Neelie Kroes recently promised “to fight with her last breath” for a common telecoms market, including an open internet and specifically mentioned net neutrality. The EU has in the past come out in favour of an open and neutral internet, but with few visible consequences. Following a 2009 declaration from the Commission and a consultation on the issue, in 2011 the European Parliament adopted a resolution in which it declared that the “lack of net neutrality hurts both businesses, consumers and society as whole” and called for a common approach to net neutrality across the Union. Nevertheless, of the EU Member States only the Netherlands and the Republic of Slovenia have net neutrality enshrined in legislation. Might the Commission go as far as putting it into a Directive and making it European law? The Commissioner seems to be making a strong case on several fronts and is receiving some support

Net Neutrality and Investment Incentives

This paper analyzes the effects of net neutrality regulation on investment incentives for Internet service providers (ISPs) and content providers (CPs), and their implications for social welfare. We show that the ISP’s decision on the introduction of discrimination across content depends on a potential trade-off between network access fee and the revenue from the trade of the first-priority. Concerning the ISP’s investment incentives, we find that capacity expansion affects the sale price of the priority right under the discriminatory regime. Because the relative merit of the first priority, and thus its value, becomes relatively small for higher capacity levels, the ISP’s incentive to invest on capacity under a discriminatory network can be smaller than that under a neutral regime where such rent extraction effects do not exist. Contrary to ISPs’ claims that net neutrality regulations would have a chilling effect on their incentive to invest, we cannot dismiss the possibility of the opposite.net neutrality, investment (innovation) incentives, queuing theory, hold-up problem, two-sided markets, vertical integration

Network Neutrality: What is at Stake?

Network neutrality is the view that Internet users should have control over what content they view on the Internet. This principle was honored until 2005 when the FCC reclassified the technology that brings the Internet to its users. The purpose of this project is to gain insight into the net neutrality debate, examine what net neutrality really means to users and the potential long-term consequences the results of this debate could produce. I intend to demonstrate the need for network neutrality by providing the context in which network neutrality can be best understood. I examine the circumstances that led to the loss of neutrality as well as the origins of the Internet and the intent with which it was made available to the public. I then recognize and discuss the viewpoints of those on each side of the neutrality debate. Next, I address the impact the debate has had thus far and the reality of a non-neutral Internet. Lastly, I state my viewpoint on the issue and discuss the significant power and freedom neutrality represents to Internet users everywhere

Corporate Tax Asymmetries under Investment Irreversibility

This article studies the effects of corporate tax asymmetries on irreversible investment. We discuss an asymmetric tax scheme where the tax base is given by the firm's return, net of an imputation rate. When the firm's return is less than this rate, however, no tax refunds are allowed. Contrary to common winsdom, this asymmetric scheme may be neutral even when assuming a long-lasting income uncertainty. Neutrality holds even if we add both capital and political uncertainty.

Antitrust, Regulation and the Neutrality Trap: A plea for a smart, evidence-based internet policy. CEPS Special Report No. 104/April 2015

When they look at Internet policy, EU policymakers seem mesmerised, if not bewitched, by the word ‘neutrality’. Originally confined to the infrastructure layer, today the neutrality rhetoric is being expanded to multi-sided platforms such as search engines and more generally online intermediaries. Policies for search neutrality and platform neutrality are invoked to pursue a variety of policy objectives, encompassing competition, consumer protection, privacy and media pluralism. This paper analyses this emerging debate and comes to a number of conclusions. First, mandating net neutrality at the infrastructure layer might have some merit, but it certainly would not make the Internet neutral. Second, since most of the objectives initially associated with network neutrality cannot be realistically achieved by such a rule, the case for network neutrality legislation would have to stand on different grounds. Third, the fact that the Internet is not neutral is mostly a good thing for end users, who benefit from intermediaries that provide them with a selection of the over-abundant information available on the Web. Fourth, search neutrality and platform neutrality are fundamentally flawed principles that contradict the economics of the Internet. Fifth, neutrality is a very poor and ineffective recipe for media pluralism, and as such should not be invoked as the basis of future media policy. All these conclusions have important consequences for the debate on the future EU policy for the Digital Single Market

California, Are You There? It\u27s the Entertainment Industry Calling and We Need Net Neutrality

With online streaming rapidly replacing cable as the preferred method of media consumption for viewers, demand for online content is at an all-time high. Behind the scenes of the entertainment evolution is an open and neutral Internet that facilitates equal access to all online content. Until recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) committed to preserving the neutral net by passing Net Neutrality regulations that prohibited Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from blocking, throttling, or prioritizing online content. That changed on December 14, 2017, when the FCC repealed Net Neutrality, lifting the restrictions that once prevented ISPs from differentially transmitting online content. ISPs are now free to create a hierarchy of content prioritization that favors the content they own and the content hosted by streaming services capable of paying the greatest prioritization fees. This hierarchy has the potential to reduce innovation in the online streaming service industry by creating financial barriers to entry that keep smaller streaming services out, limiting the diversity of content accessible by consumers. This Note first describes the history of the Internet’s regulation that preceded Net Neutrality’s repeal, then explains the repeal’s potential consequences on online streaming services and consumers. Next, this Note offers solutions to Net Neutrality’s repeal. Finally, this Note concludes with a call to action, encouraging those who care about the future of a neutral Internet to not stand idle

Narrative-driven alternative roads to achieve mid-century CO2 net neutrality in Europe

The tightened climate mitigation targets of the EU green deal raise an important question: Which strategy should be used to achieve carbon emissions net neutrality? This study explores stakeholder-designed narratives of the future energy system development within the deep decarbonization context. European carbon net-neutrality goals are put under test in a model comparison exercise using state of the art Energy-Environment-Economy (E3) models: ETM-UCL, PRIMES and REMIND. Results show that while achieving the transition to carbon neutrality by mid-century is feasible under quite different future energy systems, some robust commonalities emerge. Electrification of end use sectors combined with large-scale expansion of renewable energy is a no-regret decision for all strategies; Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) plays an important role for achieving net-neutral targets under all scenarios, but is most relevant when demand-side changes are limited; hydrogen and synthetic fuels can be a relevant mitigation option for mid-century mitigation in hard-to-abate sectors; energy efficiency can reduce the supply system strain. Finally, high carbon prices (300-900€/tCO2) are needed under all strategies in order to achieve carbon net neutrality in 2050

Antitrust, Regulation and the Neutrality Trap: A plea for a smart, evidence-based internet policy

1noWhen they look at Internet policy, EU policymakers seem mesmerised, if not bewitched, by the word ‘neutrality’. Originally confined to the infrastructure layer, today the neutrality rhetoric is being expanded to multi-sided platforms such as search engines and more generally online intermediaries. Policies for search neutrality and platform neutrality are invoked to pursue a variety of policy objectives, encompassing competition, consumer protection, privacy and media pluralism. This paper analyses this emerging debate and comes to a number of conclusions. First, mandating net neutrality at the infrastructure layer might have some merit, but it certainly would not make the Internet neutral. Second, since most of the objectives initially associated with network neutrality cannot be realistically achieved by such a rule, the case for network neutrality legislation would have to stand on different grounds. Third, the fact that the Internet is not neutral is mostly a good thing for end users, who benefit from intermediaries that provide them with a selection of the over-abundant information available on the Web. Fourth, search neutrality and platform neutrality are fundamentally flawed principles that contradict the economics of the Internet. Fifth, neutrality is a very poor and ineffective recipe for media pluralism, and as such should not be invoked as the basis of future media policy. All these conclusions have important consequences for the debate on the future EU policy for the Digital Single Market.openopenAndrea RendaRenda, Andre