Tag Archives: greenhouse gases

Border Measures Could Make Climate Policy Better or — More Likely — Worse

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The international press reports, “At Climate Talks, Danger to Free Trade Mounts.”

The Copenhagen negotiations have essentially failed to include, among the many topics covered, one that will be critical in the coming years:   the question of import tariffs or other trade penalties that individual countries apply against the products of other countries that they deem too carbon-intensive.    Such border measures are already in EU and US legislation (the Waxman-Markey bill, not yet passed by the Senate).    Properly designed, they could turn out to be the missing instrument needed to get each country to cut emissions without fear of others taking unfair advantage, via leakage.   More likely, national politics will turn them into protectionist barriers. read more

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How to Set Greenhouse Gas Emission Targets for All Countries

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The effects of a changing global climate show up gradually, decade by decade.The effects of a changing US political climate have also been showing up gradually, year by year.A watershed was reached June 25, when the US Congress for the first time approved a bill to limit emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs), by a vote of 219 to 212.But the Senate hurdle will be tougher.  The attempt to address Climate Change still has a very long way to go.

 

The problem

 

Climate Change is of course a global externality.Due to the free-rider problem, no single country, especially the United States, is likely to act on its own.The best solution is a multilateral treaty in which all countries commit to serious action together. In December of this year, a Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will meet in Copenhagen, in the hope of negotiating a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol. read more

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Serious Research Balances Economic Costs & Environmental Benefits of Climate Policy

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Ten years ago this summer, President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers, of which I was a Member, responded to requests from the Congress, which was then under Republican control, to explain in analytical terms what would be the economic effects of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change that had just been negotiated among the members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.  Our response was a document called the Administration Economic Analysis.   It relied on some of the leading Integrated Assessment Models, and showed that the costs of Kyoto could be relatively low provided international trading of emission permits were freely allowed, and provided developing countries participated in the system.    Not zero costs, as wishful thinking by some techno-optimists would have it.  Not prohibitive costs, as some skeptics would have it.   But moderate costs — relatively low if measures could be implemented sensibly. read more

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