The Formation of Preferences in Two-level Games: An Analysis of India’s Domestic and Foreign Energy Policy

This paper examines the formation of India’s energy-policy strategy as an act of doubleedged diplomacy. After developing an analytical framework based on the two-level game approach to international relations (IR), it focuses on the domestic context of policy preference formation. India’s energy strategy is shaped by a shortage of energy and the scarcity of indigenous reserves; these problems have together resulted in a growing import dependence in order to sustain economic growth rates, outdated cross-subsidies, overregulation, and nontransparent bureaucratic structures which are adverse to private investment. The Indian government still dominates the energy sector, but large electoral constituencies within the country exert a considerable indirect influence. The paper analyzes how all these domestic necessities combine with India’s general foreign policy goals and traditions to form an overall energy strategy. We finally discuss how this strategy plays out in a competitive international environment where global resources are shrinking (with most claims already distributed) and environmental concerns are on the rise.preferences in two-level games, Indian foreign policy, energy security

An early assessment of national allocation plans for phase 2 of EU emission trading

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EU Emission trading – better job second time around?

The EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for CO2-emissions from energy and industry installations reflects a paradigm shift towards market-based instruments for environmental policy in the EU. The centerpieces of the EU ETS are National Allocation Plans (NAPs), which individual Member States (MS) design for each phase. NAPs state the total quantity of allowances available in each period (ET-budget) and determine how MS allocate allowances to individual installations. The NAPs thus govern investments and innovation in energy efficient technologies and the energy sector. In terms of distribution, they predetermine winners and losers. In this paper we analyze and evaluate 25 NAPs submitted to the European Commission (EC) for phase 2 (2008-2012) of the EU ETS. At the macro level,we assess whether the submitted ET-budgets are stringent, and whether they imply a cost-efficient split of the required emission reductions between the EU ETS sectors (energy and industry) and the remaining sectors (transportation, tertiary and households). Comparing the submitted ET-budgets with those already approved by the EC suggests that the EC’s decisions significantly improved the effectiveness and economic efficiency of the EU ETS. But given the high share of Kyoto Mechanisms companies are allowed to use, the EU ETS is unlikely to require substantial emission reductions within the EU. At the micro level, we assess (across countries and phases) the allocation methods for existing and new installations, for closures and for clean technologies. A comparison of the NAPs for the second phase and the first phase (2005-2007) provides insights into the (limited) adaptability and flexibility of the scheme. The findings provide guidance for the future design of the EU ETS and applications to other sectors and regions

Staatlichkeit in Entwicklungsländern: Versachlichung tut not

Copper remains at elevated levels in the aquatic environment of Stockholm due to diffuse urban sources. Management of these diffuse sources requires their quantification but they cannot be measured directly by field observations. The working hypothesis of this thesis was that Copper levels in the sediments of urban lakes would reflect diffuse emissions within their catchment areas. In order to test this hypothesis, a source – transport – storage conceptual model was developed for tracing the urban diffuse sources of Copper to the sediment in the urbanised catchment. A substance flow analysis (SFA) approach was taken in the source module and a fate, mass-balance model was applied in the lake module. Five separate urban lakes (Judarn, Laduviken, Långsjön, Råcksta Träsk and Trekanten) within the Stockholm area and a main water flow pathway from Lake Mälaren to the inner archipelago of the Baltic Sea, through Stockholm, were selected as case studies.  In comparison to actual source strength data in the literature for the five case study lakes, the SFA approach gave similar results to previous models, but with reduced uncertainty. The SFA approach was also able to indicate the actual sources of urban copper, which was not accomplished by the other approaches and which is a great advantage in managing the sources. For the five lakes in Stockholm, traffic and copper roofs were found to be major contributors of Copper. For the three more polluted lakes, good agreement was obtained between simulated sediment copper contents and independent field observations, thereby supporting the applicability of the model in such cases. Furthermore, simulation results showed sediment copper content to be linearly dependent on the urban load. While this suggests that the urban copper sediment level reflects the urban load, considerable integration of this load over time (decade(s)) was suggested by the simulation results, so time must be allowed in order to detect a change in the urban load by field monitoring of the sediments.  Published data on the main water flow pathway from Lake Mälaren to the archipelago showed a peak in sediment copper content close to the city centre, confirming a considerable urban influence. An approach to quantitatively follow Cu from its urban source through such a complex, aquatic system was developed and applied to Stockholm. The compliance of future quantitative model results with monitoring data may help test the choices made in this conceptual model and the applicability of the model. Data availability proved to be a major obstacle to achieving a quantitative model, particularly as several municipalities with different levels of data availability surround the main water flow pathway studied.  Finally, the applicability of the quantitative, coupled source – transport – storage was demonstrated in a simplified scenario analysis. The ability of the model to estimate the copper load to air and soil and to the urban aquatic environment was also demonstrated.QC 2011032

Die Institutionalisierung von Parteien und die Konsolidierung des Parteiensystems in Indien : Kriterien, Befund und Ursachen dauerhafter Defizite

Indische Parteien und das indische Parteiensystem als Ganzes können nach den gängigen, aus der Diskussion westlicher Vorbilder gewonnenen Kriterien nur als teilweise konsolidiert bzw. institutionalisiert gelten. Dieser Befund ergibt sich, obwohl die indischen Parteien auf eine lange organisatorische Geschichte zurückblicken, über eine hohe Anzahl von Mitgliedern verfügen, ausreichende organisatorische Komplexität und Unabhängigkeit von gesellschaftlichen Gruppen/Verbänden aufweisen und obwohl sie den politischen Prozess, insbesondere die Rekrutierung von Personal für politische Führungsaufgaben und die Bestimmung der politischen Agenda dominieren. Die mangelnde Institutionalisierung trägt ihre Ursachen in der Prävalenz faktionaler Konflikte, der klientelen Anbindung zwischen Parteiführern und Gefolgschaft, der ungenügenden finanziellen Basis der Parteien, die auch zu unorthodoxen Mittel der Einwerbung zwingt, und konsequenterweise der nur schwach ausgeprägten innerparteilichen Demokratie.Indian parties and the party system in India are only partly consolidated resp. institutionalised, according to the usual criteria, distilled from the experience of Western parties. This is so in spite of the long tradition of Indian parties, their large membership base, organisational complexity and independence from interest groups and in spite of their dominant position in regard to political leadership recruitment or the government agenda. Causes for the institutional deficits of parties lie in the prevalence of factional conflicts, clientelistic linkages between party leaders and member, and the parties’ weak financial basis (compensated by tapping unorthodox sources of finance). These phenomena are responsible for the only very limited level of internal party democracy in India

An early assessment of national allocation plans for phase 2 of EU emission trading

Based on 18 National Allocation Plans (NAP) for phase 2 (2008-2012) of the EU Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), we explore to which extent individual Member States (MS) intend to use the ETS effectively and efficiently to reduce CO2 emissions. Our analyses at the macro level of these NAPs show that on average the ET-budgets in phase 2 are only about 3 % lower than the budgets in phase 1 (2005-2007), historical emissions in 2005 and projected emissions in 2010. While on average, the old MS intend to reduce emissions by about 10 %, compared to projected emissions, the im-plied excess allocation in the new MS is more than 20 %. When compared with a cost-efficient split of the required emission reductions, the ET-budgets in the EU-15 MS are generally too large. Thus, the burden for non-trading sectors (households, tertiary and transport) will be too high. Noteworthy are also the high shares of governments' intended and companies' possible use of Kyoto Mechanisms, which challenge the traditional position held by the EU on supplementarity. In general, our analyses at the micro level of the allocation methods (across countries and phases) suggest that MS tend to stick with the oncepts and methodologies developed in phase 1, unless these actually contradict rulings by the European Commission. Thus the progress made towards more efficient and more harmonized allocation rules is generally small. With some variation, all NAPs include persistent inefficient rules for closures and new installations which distort dynamic innovation incentives and tend to preserve existing production structures. Observed improvements include a (rather small) increase in auctioning and the use of benchmarking for existing and new installations. Also, the NAPs of a few old MS have simplified special provisions for process-related emissions or combined heat and power. In contrast, new MS have often introduced such provisions in phase 2. We conclude that potentials to improve environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency are far from being tapped. Improvements crucially hinge on the outcome of the European Commission's review process. --

Incentives for energy efficiency in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

This paper explores the incentives for energy efficiency induced by the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) for installations in the energy and industry sectors. Our analysis of the National Allocation Plans for 27 EU Member States for phase 2 of the EU ETS (2008-2012) suggests that the price and cost effects for improvements in carbon and energy efficiency in the energy and industry sectors will be stronger than in phase 1 (2005-2007), but only because the European Commission has substantially reduced the number of allowances to be allocated by the Member States. To the extent that companies from these sectors (notably power producers) pass through the extra costs for carbon, higher prices for allowances translate into stronger incentives for demand- side energy efficiency. With the cuts in allocation to energy and industry sectors these will be forced to greater reductions, thus the non-ET sectors like household, tertiary and transport will have to reduce less, which is more in line with the cost-efficient share of emission reductions. The findings also imply that domestic efficiency improvements in the energy and industry sectors may remain limited since companies can make substantial use of credits from the Kyoto Mechanisms. The analysis of the rules for existing installations, new projects and closures suggests that incentives for energy efficiency are higher in phase 2 than in phase 1 because of the increased application of benchmarking to new and existing installations and because a lower share of allowances will be allocated for free. Nevertheless, there is still ample scope to further improve the EU ETS so that the full potential for energy efficiency can be realized. --Climate policy,emission trading,energy efficiency,innovation

Delta-electron emission in deep-inelastic heavy-ion collisions

This paper reports calculations of the influence of a reaction time T>10-21 s in deep-inelastic Xe-Pb collisions on the energy spectrum of δ electrons ejected in the same collision. It is shown that the lifetime of the superheavy composite system causes pronounced oscillations of width ε=h/T in the electron distribution, which survive the inclusion of multistep excitations and the folding with a lifetime distribution function. This effect may serve as an atomic clock for deep-inelastic collisions

Using benchmarking for the primary allocation of EU allowances - an application to the German power sector

Basing allocation of allowances for existing installations under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme on specific emission values (benchmarks) rather than on historic emissions may have several advantages. Benchmarking may recognize early action, provide higher incentives for replacing old installations and result in fewer distortions in case of updating, facilitate EU-wide harmonization of allocation rules or allow for simplified and more efficient closure rules. Applying an optimization model for the German power sector, we analyze the distributional effects of various allocation regimes across and within different generation technologies. Results illustrate that regimes with a single uniform benchmark for all fuels or with a single benchmark for coal- and lignite-fired plants imply substantial distributional effects. In particular, lignite- and old coal-fired plants would be made worse off. Under a regime with fuel-specific benchmarks for gas, coal, and lignite 50 % of the gas-fired plants and 4 % of the lignite and coal-fired plants would face an allowance deficit of at least 10 %, while primarily modern lignite-fired plants would benefit. Capping the surplus and shortage of allowances would further moderate the distributional effects, but may tarnish incentives for efficiency improvements and recognition of early action. --

The role of the regulatory framework for innovation activities: The EU ETS and the German paper industry

Based on a research framework which combines environmental economics and innovation studies, we explore the relevance of the regulatory framework for innovation activities in the German paper industry, with a focus on climate poli-cies. Innovation activities considered include research and development, adop-tion and organizational change. Empirically, we mainly rely on the survey data of paper producers and technology providers. Findings suggest that innovation activities are mainly governed by market factors and (as yet) are hardly affected by the European Emission Trading System and other climate policies. Also, the impact of these policies on innovation activities is lower for technology providers than for paper producers. However, the majority of companies expect the ef-fects of the regulatory climate policy framework on innovation to increase by 2020. --