Mitigating Carbon Leakage: Combining Output-Based Rebating with a Consumption Tax

Unilateral climate policy induces carbon leakage through the relocation of emission-intensive and trade-exposed industries to regions with no or more lenient emission regulation. Both analytical and numerical studies suggest that emission pricing combined with border carbon adjustments may be a second-best instrument, and more cost-effective than output-based rebating, in which case domestic output is indirectly subsidized. No countries have so far imposed border carbon adjustments, while variants of output-based rebating have been implemented. In this paper we demonstrate that it is welfare improving for a region who has already implemented emission pricing along with output-based rebating for emission-intensive and trade-exposed goods to also introduce a consumption tax on these goods. Moreover, we show that combining output-based rebating with a consumption tax can be equivalent with border carbon adjustments

Technological Change in Economic Models of Environmental Policy: A Survey

This paper provides an overview of the treatment of technological change in economic models of environmental policy. Numerous economic modeling studies have confirmed the sensitivity of mid- and long-run climate change mitigation cost and benefit projections to assumptions about technology costs. In general, technical progress is considered to be a noneconomic, exogenous variable in global climate change modeling. However, there is overwhelming evidence that technological change is not an exogenous variable but to an important degree endogenous, induced by needs and pressures. Hence, some environmenteconomy models treat technological change as endogenous, responding to socio-economic variables. Three main elements in models of technological innovation are: (i) corporate investment in research and development, (ii) spillovers from R&D, and (iii) technology learning, especially learning-by-doing. The incorporation of induced technological change in different types of environmental-economic models tends to reduce the costs of environmental policy, accelerates abatement and may lead to positive spillover and negative leakage

WIATEC: A World Integrated Assessment Model of Global Trade Environment and Climate Change

This paper describes the structure of the World Integrated Assessment model of global Trade, Environmental, and Climate change (WIATEC).The model consists of a multi-regional multi-sectoral core CGE model linked to a climate model. The core CGE is based on an existing global trade and environment model called GTAP-E (Truong, 1999; Burniaux and Truong, 2002). A suite of different and interchangeable 'modules' are then built around this 'core' to enable the model to be able to handle a range of different policy issues such as CO2 emissions, abatement, trading, non-CO2 (CH4 and N2O) emissions, land use land use change and forestry (LULUCF) activities, and changing technologies in the electricity generation sector. The approach which uses a core model structure with different additional modules built around this core structure allows the overall model to be flexible and can be adapted to a range of different policy issues. We illustrate the usefulness of this approach in a policy experiment which looks at the interaction between emissions trading scheme and the promotion of renewable energy targets in the European Union climate policy

A Regression on Climate Policy - The European Commission's Proposal to Reduce CO2 Emissions from Transport

As part of its efforts to reach the targets of the Kyoto Protocol, the European Commission is currently considering a new directive to reduce the per-kilometer CO2 emissions of newly registered automobiles. This paper critically assesses this proposal with respect to its economic and technological underpinnings. We argue that the proposal's reliance on targets based on per-kilometer emissions not only conceals the true costs of compliance and thereby stifles informed public discourse, but is also less cost-effective than alternative measures such as emissions trading. We further examine the proposal's underlying assumptions, finding that these misrepresent the current state of automotive technology and therefore may overestimate the feasibility of achieving the suggested emissions targets. Alternative targets are consequently proposed that are argued to more accurately reflect the industry's technological evolution to date

A Proposal for the Attribution of Market Leakage to CDM Projects

Economic models suggest that in many cases, market leakage rates of greenhouse gas abatement reach the two-digit percentage range. Consequently, the Marrakesh Accords require Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to account for leakage. Despite this, most project proponents neglect market leakage for their project, because the influence of an individual project on market prices seems to be negligible. Insufficient leakage accounting is facilitated by a lack of theories and applicable proposals regarding the quantification and attribution of leakage effects. The aim of this paper is to develop a proposal for the attribution of market leakage effects to CDM projects. To this purpose, we identify the transmission mechanisms for CDM project leakage, investigate the current practice of leakage accounting, and analyse alternative attribution methods for leakage effects that are transmitted through price changes. We find that project-specific approaches must fail to take account of such leakage effects. Consequently, we propose to estimate aggregate market leakage effects and attribute them proportionally to individual projects. Our proposal is based on commodity-specific leakage factors which can be applied by project developers to any emission reductions that are associated with a project's leakage-relevant demand or supply changes. The proposal is conservative, equitable, incentive compatible and applicable at manageable costs