Innovation under taxes versus permits : how a commonly made assumption leads to misleading recommendations

The literature on the impact of economic instruments (typically taxes and tradable permits) on the level of innovation is usually based on the assumption that innovation reduces the slope of the marginal abatement cost curve. This assumption, which usually leads to the conclusion that taxes induce higher levels of innovation than tradable permits, is however never motivated. In this short article, we analyse the assumption by introducing innovation in the production function as a polluting firm and by showing how it affects the corresponding marginal abatement cost curve. We show that the slope of the marginal abatement cost curvedoes not necessarily decrease with the level of innovation. As a consequence, previous analyses lead to misleading policy recommendations

"Mitigation, Adaptation, Suffering": In Search of the Right Mix in the Face of Climate Change

The usually assumed two categories of costs involved in climate change policy analysis, namely abatement and damage costs, hide the presence of a third category, namely adaptation costs. This dodges the determination of an appropriate level for them. Including adaptation costs explicitly in the total environmental cost function allows one to characterize the optimal (cost minimizing) balance between the three categories, in statics as well as in dynamics. Implications are derived for cost benefit analysis of adaptation expenditures.

Is Kyoto fatally flawed? An analysis with MacGEM

In this paper we present some numerical simulations with the MacGEM model to evaluate the consequences for the Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gases of the recent Bonn agreement and the nonratification by the USA. MacGEM is a global marginal abatement cost model for carbon emissions from fossil fuel use. Marginal abatement cost functions are estimated on data generated with the GEM-E3-World general equilibrium model under the assumption that abatement is produced in a cost efficient way in every individual country/region of the model. Nonparticipation of the USA causes the equilibrium carbon price in Annex B countries to fall by approximately 50% since an important share of permit demand falls out and the global abatement objective is substantially eroded. With respect to the Bonn agreement, we focus on the Commitment Period Reserve (CPR) and carbon sinks. The CPR is a compliance mechanism requiring all Parties to maintain some fixed number of permits on their permit account. It entails a binding permit export ceiling for the former Soviet Union and central European countries. It raises the equilibrium carbon permit price by approximately 30% and generates substantial monopoly rents for permit exporters. Finally, carbon sinks enhancement activities are accounted for by assuming that they represent free abatement options. These activities enable Parties to fulfil their reduction commitment at lower compliance costs and cause the equilibrium permit price to decreases even further. We conclude that the Bonn agreement has indeed eroded completely the Kyoto Protocol's emission targets but that it has the merit to have saved the international climate change negotiation framework.environmental economics; climate change; permit trade; Kyoto Protocol; carbon sinks

Environmental policy and speculation on markets for emission permits

Tradable emission permits share many characteristics with financial assets. As on financial markets, speculators are likely to be active on large markets for emission permits such as those developing under the Kyoto Protocol. We show how the presence of speculators on a market for emission permits affects the price of these permits when firms face risk aversion. The agency in charge of the optimal environmental policy should account for the presence of speculators when determining the total amount of permits to issue.

Should developing countries participate in the Clean Development Mechanism under the Kyoto Protocol ? The low-hanging fruits and baseline issues

Under the Kyoto Protocol, industrialized countries committed to emission reductions may fullfil part of their obligations by implementing emission reduction projects in developing countries. In doing so, they make use of the so-called Clean Development Mechansim (CDM). Two important issues surround the implementation of the CDM. First, if the cheapest abatment measures are implemented for CDM projects, developing countries may be left with only more expensive measures when they have to meet their own commitments in the future (the so-called low-hanging fruits issue). Second, a choice must be made on the type of baseline against which emission reductions are measured : an absolute baseline or a relative (to output) one (the baseline issue). The purpose of this paper is to study the interactions between these two issues from the point of view of the developing country. Two major results are obtained. First, when possible future commitments for developing countries and irreversibility of abatement measures are taken into account, we show that the industry where CDM projects are implemented enjoys large profits under an absolute baseline than under a relative one. Second, concerning the low-hanging fruits problem, the financial compensation required by the developing country for implementing ‘too many’ CDM projects is larger under the relative baseline.

Pourquoi des marchés de permis de polluer ? Les enjeux économiques et éthiques de Kyoto

Dans le cadre du Protocole de Kyoto, la Belgique s’est engagée à réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 7,5 % par rapport à leur niveau de 1990. Afin de rencontrer leurs obligations, les autorités belges sont susceptibles de recourir aux marchés internationaux des permis d’émission. Ce numéro de Regards a pour objectif d’expliquer de manière simple le fonctionnement de tels marchés et d’indiquer la mesure dans laquelle il est justifié d’y recourir.

CO2 abatement costs and permits price: exploring the impact of banking and the role of future commitments

Since the signing of the Kyoto Protocol in December 1997, several authors have computed the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the amount specified in the Protocol, while accounting for the possibility to use the flexible mechanisms of the Protocol (internationally tradable emission permits). A number of such studies have recently shown that, following the US withdrawal and the Bonn and Marrakesh agreements, these abatement costs will be very low and the price of the permits could reach zero. However, these analyses usually take only the first commitment period (20082012) into account and do not explicitly consider the possibility of banking permits from one commitment period to the other (Art. 3.13 of the Protocol). The simple dynamic model that we develop here introduces this possibility. It allows one to analyze the impact of alternative future commitments (post 2012) for the US and the non-Annex B countries on world emissions, abatement costs and the permits price. We find that, provided ambituous post-Kyoto commitments are negotiated: (i) in 2008-2012, the amount of banked permits will largely exceed the amount of hot air and permits prices will be much higher than predicted by most other studies, (ii) the banking provision significantly reduces world total costs but increases total costs for all permit-importing Annex B countries (i.e. all Annex B countries except countries of eastern Europe) via a rise in the permits price in 2008-2017 and (iii) the issue of market power on hot air is not likely to be a relevant one