Sectoral and regional impacts of the European Carbon Market in Portugal

Abstract

Across Europe, CO2 emission permits represent one of the main policy instruments to comply with the limits established by the European Commission to achieve the goals of the Kyoto Protocol. In this paper we use microdata to address two issues regarding the impact of the European Carbon Market (EU ETS). On the one hand, we analyse the sectoral effects of the EU ETS in Portugal. The main goal is to study the outcomes of this policy in terms of the transactions carried out between sectors, as well as the distributive consequences. On the other hand, we also look at the regional impact. The pre-existing specialization of different regions in the production of different goods and services might lead to an uneven economic impact of the new permit market. In particular, Portuguese data indicate a distribution of revenue from low income to high income regions, or rather, between installations located in those regions. We focus on the first two years of operation of the EU ETS, using data for each one of the 244 Portuguese installations regulated by this market as well as financial data for 80% of these installationsRegional impact, sectoral impact, tradable CO2 permits, European Carbon Market.