Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond the Pledge and Review Model

Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current pledge and review paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep decarbonization, and the central role of fossil fuels in the global economy, these soft factors are likely to prove too weak. Projections based on the pledges embodied in the Paris Agreement indicate that the world is not on a path to avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the global climate, and there is no enforcement mechanism to assure that the commitments made in Paris are kept. These limitations suggest the need for more robust mechanisms to encourage adoption of emissions controls based on the full global costs they generate. This Article discusses four possibilities: (1) strategic emissions abatement policies; (2) linking climate change mitigation with other geopolitical issues, with a particular emphasis on trade; (3) introduction of a globally harmonized carbon price, with design features adjusted to induce reluctant countries to participate; and (4) relaxation of national sovereignty in favor of a sovereign global climate authority. Each of these options presents its own set of risks and challenges, but all must be considered in light of the importance of achieving robust global coordination on climate change mitigation and of the currently dim prospects for doing so

Incentive Compatible Climate Change Mitigation: Moving Beyond the Pledge and Review Model

Climate change represents a global commons problem, where individuals, businesses, and nation-states all lack sufficient incentives to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to levels consistent with meeting their collectively agreed upon mitigation goals. The current “pledge and review” paradigm for global climate change mitigation, which many see as a major breakthrough, relies primarily on moral pressure, reputational incentives, and global public opinion to foster cooperation on mitigation efforts over and above those driven by maximization of narrow conceptions of national interests. Given the scale of the emissions reductions required to meet stated mitigation goals, the substantial economic costs of deep decarbonization, and the central role of fossil fuels in the global economy, these soft factors are likely to prove too weak. Projections based on the pledges embodied in the Paris Agreement indicate that the world is not on a path to avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the global climate, and there is no enforcement mechanism to assure that the commitments made in Paris are kept. These limitations suggest the need for more robust mechanisms to encourage adoption of emissions controls based on the full global costs they generate. This Article discusses four possibilities: (1) strategic emissions abatement policies; (2) linking climate change mitigation with other geopolitical issues, with a particular emphasis on trade; (3) introduction of a globally harmonized carbon price, with design features adjusted to induce reluctant countries to participate; and (4) relaxation of national sovereignty in favor of a sovereign global climate authority. Each of these options presents its own set of risks and challenges, but all must be considered in light of the importance of achieving robust global coordination on climate change mitigation and of the currently dim prospects for doing so

The Carbon Price Equivalent: A Metric for Comparing Climate Change Mitigation Efforts Across Jurisdictions

Climate change presents a global commons problem: Emissions reductions on the scale needed to meet global targets do not pass a domestic cost-benefit test in most countries. To give national governments ample incentive to pursue deep decarbonization, mutual interstate coercion will be necessary. Many proposed tools of coercive climate diplomacy would require a one-dimensional metric for comparing the stringency of climate change mitigation policy packages across jurisdictions. This article proposes and defends such a metric: the carbon price equivalent. There is substantial variation in the set of climate change mitigation policy instruments implemented by different countries. Nonetheless, the consequences of any combination of these policies can be summarized in terms of aggregate emissions during a specified period. Given differences in geography, resource endowments, levels of development, demographics, and other boundary conditions, aggregate emissions do not lend themselves to meaningful direct comparisons of climate change mitigation efforts. However, there will always be some carbon price that, if implemented in an otherwise neutral policy environment, would have produced this observed level of aggregate emissions during a specified period. This is the carbon price equivalent of the package of policies that produced that level of aggregate emissions. The carbon price equivalent can also be thought of as the weighted average emissions allowance trading price that would have prevailed under a cap-and-trade system implemented in an otherwise neutral policy environment, with the cap set to match observed aggregate emissions over some period. The carbon price equivalent metric has several applications, including strategic emissions policies, strong trade linkage, and border adjustment of domestic emissions taxes and regulations. This article sets forth procedures for estimating national carbon price equivalents, including a specification of the otherwise neutral policy environment. Design issues and challenges involving currency conversions, production versus consumption emissions, spillover effects of domestic climate policies, use of a social cost of carbon to set regulatory policy, and greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide are analyzed and resolved. A normative case for the carbon price equivalent metric is advanced in terms of both justice and efficiency. Alternative metrics are considered and found inadequate

Global Climate Governance in 3D: Mainstreaming Geoengineering Within a Unified Framework

The failure of conventional climate change mitigation to reduce climate-related risks to tolerable levels has spurred interest in more unconventional—and riskier—climate interventions. What currently sounds like science fiction could become a reality in the not-so-distant future: planes blasting particles into the sky to block the sun, vast deserts covered with mirrors, algae sucking carbon into the depths of the ocean. Scholars tend to lump all these unconventional climate measures together in a fuzzy category called “geoengineering,” and set them apart from conventional climate change mitigation. But the characteristics of climate interferences vary across three distinct dimensions, which the mitigation-geoengineering dichotomy fails to capture. First, interventions operate via different mechanisms, such as altering the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases or changing the fraction of incoming solar radiation absorbed by the earth. Second, the characteristic duration of interferences varies from several days to millennia. Third, interferences differ in terms of leverage—the scale of climate impact achievable with a fixed investment of resources. This Article argues that global climate governance would be best served by a unified approach that addresses all climate interferences based on these three dimensions. In such a unified framework, influence over multilateral decisions to deploy risky, high-leverage interventions could be used as an incentive to induce greater national investment in safer, more expensive decarbonization efforts. Scientific uncertainty should not deter early action on geoengineering governance; it should be viewed as an opportunity to lock in agreement on neutral principles while national governments remain behind a partial veil of ignorance regarding their interests

Valued Graphs and the Representation Theory of Lie Algebras

Quivers (directed graphs) and species (a generalization of quivers) and their representations play a key role in many areas of mathematics including combinatorics, geometry, and algebra. Their importance is especially apparent in their applications to the representation theory of associative algebras, Lie algebras, and quantum groups. In this paper, we discuss the most important results in the representation theory of species, such as Dlab and Ringel's extension of Gabriel's theorem, which classifies all species of finite and tame representation type. We also explain the link between species and K-species (where K is a field). Namely, we show that the category of K-species can be viewed as a subcategory of the category of species. Furthermore, we prove two results about the structure of the tensor ring of a species containing no oriented cycles that do not appear in the literature. Specifically, we prove that two such species have isomorphic tensor rings if and only if they are isomorphic as "crushed" species, and we show that if K is a perfect field, then the tensor algebra of a K-species tensored with the algebraic closure of K is isomorphic to, or Morita equivalent to, the path algebra of a quiver.Comment: 36 page

The Enigmatic Curvature of Central Iberia and its Puzzling Kinematics

The collision between Gondwana and Laurussia that formed the latest supercontinent, Pangea, occurred during Devonian to early Permian times and resulted in a largescale orogeny that today transects Europe, northwest Africa, and eastern North America. This orogen is characterized by an S shaped corrugated geometry in Iberia. The northern curve of the corrugation is the well-known and studied Cantabrian (or Ibero-Armorican) Orocline and is convex to the east and towards the hinterland. Largely ignored for decades, the geometry and kinematics of the southern curvature, known as the Central Iberian curve, are still ambiguous and hotly debated. Despite the paucity of data, the enigmatic Central Iberian curvature has inspired a variety of kinematic models that attempt to explain its formation but with little consensus. This paper presents the advances and milestones in our understanding of the geometry and kinematics of the Central Iberian curve from the last decade with particular attention to structural and paleomagnetic studies. When combined, the currently available datasets suggest that the Central Iberian curve did not undergo regional differential vertical-axis rotations during or after the latest stages of the Variscan orogeny and did not form as the consequence of a single process. Instead, its core is likely a primary curve (i.e., inherited from previous physiographic features of the Iberian crust), whereas the curvature in areas outside the core is dominated by folding interference from the Variscan orogeny or more recent Cenozoic (Alpine) tectonic events

The Enigmatic Curvature of Central Iberia and its Puzzling Kinematics

The collision between Gondwana and Laurussia that formed the latest supercontinent, Pangea, occurred during Devonian to early Permian times and resulted in a largescale orogeny that today transects Europe, northwest Africa, and eastern North America. This orogen is characterized by an S shaped corrugated geometry in Iberia. The northern curve of the corrugation is the well-known and studied Cantabrian (or Ibero-Armorican) Orocline and is convex to the east and towards the hinterland. Largely ignored for decades, the geometry and kinematics of the southern curvature, known as the Central Iberian curve, are still ambiguous and hotly debated. Despite the paucity of data, the enigmatic Central Iberian curvature has inspired a variety of kinematic models that attempt to explain its formation but with little consensus. This paper presents the advances and milestones in our understanding of the geometry and kinematics of the Central Iberian curve from the last decade with particular attention to structural and paleomagnetic studies. When combined, the currently available datasets suggest that the Central Iberian curve did not undergo regional differential vertical-axis rotations during or after the latest stages of the Variscan orogeny and did not form as the consequence of a single process. Instead, its core is likely a primary curve (i.e., inherited from previous physiographic features of the Iberian crust), whereas the curvature in areas outside the core is dominated by folding interference from the Variscan orogeny or more recent Cenozoic (Alpine) tectonic events

Mitigating Climate Change Through Transportation and Land Use Policy

A number of U.S. state and local governments have adopted strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from transportation and land development. Although some have made significant progress in reducing GHG emissions from the power sector, transportation emissions in most states continue to rise. This Article details the range of existing and proposed state interventions to reduce transportation sector GHG emissions, analyzes the trade offs of these strategies, and offers recommendations to improve and supplement such initiatives, including strategic use of planning mandates and funding and technical assistance. Additionally, regulating land use, shifting transportation spending, removing barriers to implementing road pricing policies, and altering standards for environmental impact analysis can more effectively reduce transportation-sector GHG emissions and mitigate climate change

Comparison of Non-Redundant Array and Double Pinhole Coherence Measurements with Soft X-rays

Experiments on the future Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and other Free Electron Lasers will need to be performed on a single-shot basis. The double pinhole method of measuring spatial coherence requires a separate measurement, with a different pinhole separation distance, for each length scale sampled. This limits its utility for LCLS. A potential alternative uses a Non-Redundant Array (NRA) of apertures designed to probe the coherence over the range of length scales defined by their physical extent, in a single measurement. This approach was tested by comparing diffraction patterns from soft x-rays incident on double pinhole and NRA absorption mask structures. The double pinhole fringe visibility data serve as discrete reference points that verify the continuous spectrum of the NRA coherence data. The results present a quantitative analysis of the double pinhole coherence measurements and a qualitative comparison to the NRA images