Does Distribution Matter? When Flexibility, Equity and Efficiency in Greenhouse Gas Abatement

This paper analyses banking and borrowing of carbon emission rights within the framework of a simple, integrated assessment model. Breaking the world economy in just two regions it will be shown: (1) Increasing when-flexibility in greenhouse gas abatement through banking and borrowing of carbon emission permits has a positive effect on welfare for regions with a poor endowment in carbon emission rights, but negatively affects rich-endowed regions. (2) Intergenerational fairness advocates intertemporal flexibility in greenhouse gas abatement, irrespectively of the initial allocation of carbon rights. (3) Optimal carbon accumulation is not independent of the initial allocation of carbon rights. Different initial sharing rules clearly influence the development of atmospheric carbon concentration.Carbon rights; climate policy; integrated assessment; banking and trade

Banking and Trade of Carbon Emission Rights: A CGE Analysis

This paper analyses trading and banking of carbon emission rights. Within the framework of a modestly simple, integrated assessment model that brakes the world economy in just two re-gions, North and South, it can be shown: (1) There exists separability between environmental targets and the choice of instruments. Increasing the "when and where" flexibility in green-house gas abatement either through banking or trading of carbon emission permits or both positively affects global welfare. It has, however, almost no impact on global climate change. (2) Depending upon the choice of instruments there are significant distributional effects across regions. Both regions can improve welfare simultaneously, if carbon emission rights are traded on open international markets. But if it were feasible to bank or borrow carbon permits, then - independent of whether there is trading of carbon rights or not - the South suffers welfare losses compared to a no banking no trade situation.Carbon rights; climate policy; integrated assessment; banking and trade

Where-to-Abate and Where-to-Invest Flexibility: An Integrated Assessment Analysis of Climate Change

Within the framework of a dynamic Computable General Equilibrium model this pa-per analyses the impact of trade restrictions on regional rates of return on capital, mar-ginal costs of abatement and optimal climate policy. It will be shown that regional dif-ferences both in marginal costs of abatement and in the marginal productivity of capi-tal are driven by market imperfection. With restrictions on international trade, the in-dustrialized countries of the North exhibit higher marginal costs of abatement and a lower marginal productivity of capital than the developing nations of the South. Free trade not only in carbon emission rights but also in capital increases conventional wel-fare but stimulates carbon dioxide emissions which are not completely offset by effi-ciency gains in abatement. Nevertheless, depending upon the choice of the discount rate some kind of an invariance result is observed.Climate policy; carbon emission trade; rate-of-interest differential; marginal cost of abatement; capital mobility; international capital market imperfection

Intensity Targeting or Emission CAPS: Non-Cooperative Climate Change Policies and Technological Change

This paper analyses costs and benefits of three different post-Kyoto policy options: On the one hand there is PARETO which is the nickname for the pareto-efficient internationalization of the external effects of global climate change through trading carbon emission rights on open global markets. And there is QCAP as well as ICAP on the other. Both are unilateral climate policies. QCAP denotes a scenario where regions aim for reducing domestic carbon emissions by a certain percentage annually. ICAP is a short cut for intensity targeting which is the US' most preferred climate policy option. In a world without uncertainty about future GDP and carbon dioxide emissions it refers to the same abatement policy, however by means of technological progress onlyClimate policy; intensity targeting; R&D investments; Integrated Assessment

The impact of market innovations on the evolution of norms: the sustainability case

That institutions matter is widely accepted among economists and so are social norms as an important category of informal institutions. Social norms matter in many economic situations, but in particular for markets. The economic literature has studied the interrelation between markets and social norms in both directions – how social norms affect markets and how markets affect social norms. Starting from these two perspectives, we add to the literature, by suggesting a new link between product markets and the evolution of social norms: we analyze how the evolution of a social norm may be affected by a product innovation which adds to the variation of products with respect to their level of norm compliance. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for a) a positive impact of the innovation on the level of norm adoption and b) for multiplicity of norm equilibria. Finally we discuss policy implications

The effect of bound state dressing in laser assisted radiative recombination

We present a theoretical study on the recombination of a free electron into the ground state of a hydrogen-like ion in the presence of an external laser field. Emphasis is placed on the effects caused by the laser dressing of the residual ionic bound state. To investigate how this dressing affects the total and angle-differential cross section of laser assisted radiative recombination (LARR) we apply first-order perturbation theory and the separable Coulomb-Volkov-continuum ansatz. Using this approach detailed calculations were performed for low-$Z$ hydrogen like ions and laser intensities in the range from $I_L=10^{11}\text{W/cm}^2$ to $I_L=10^{13}\text{W/cm}^2$. It is seen that the total cross section as a function of the laser intensity is remarkably affected by the bound state dressing. Moreover the laser dressing becomes manifest as asymmetries in the angular distribution and the (energy) spectrum of the emitted recombination photons.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure

Quantifying the Dynamics of Pesticides in Natural Waters

A variety of trace analytical methods (solid-phase and liquid-liquid extraction, HPLC and GC-MS) for quantitatively assessing the input and behavior of pesticides and their metabolites (i.e., triazines, acetamides, phenoxy acids and organotin compounds) in natural waters and sediments are presented. The results of field studies illustrate the analytical methods performance such as simultaneous determination of compounds with different polarities, low detection limits, and high precision and accuracy

Quantitative measurement of combustion gases in harsh environments using NDIR spectroscopy

The global climate change calls for a more environmental friendly use of energy and has led to stricter limits and regulations for the emissions of various greenhouse gases. Consequently, there is nowadays an increasing need for the detection of exhaust and natural gases. This need leads to an ever-growing market for gas sensors, which, at the moment, is dominated by chemical sensors. Yet, the increasing demands to also measure under harsh environmental conditions pave the way for non-invasive measurements and thus to optical detection techniques. Here, we present the development of a non-dispersive infrared absorption spectroscopy (NDIR) method for application to optical detection systems operating under harsh environments.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure