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This policy briefbuilds on theworkshop EU ETS Reform: Taking Stock and Examining Carbon Price Floor Options,held at the Centrefor European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels on July 3, 2018. The workshop was cosponsored by CEPS and the AHEAD and Mistra CarbonExit projects. While the brief draws on insights from workshop discussions, its views are solely those of the authors. The brief outlinesdifferent perspectives on thepast performanceof the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)in terms of its allowance price (Section 1), analyzes how the recent reform respondedto related challenges(Section 2), and considers the case for introducinga carbon pricefloor in the EU ETS(Section 3). The main part of the brief (Section 4) identifies five myths in the debate of an EU ETSpricefloorand criticallyconfrontsthem. Section 5 concludes by discussing potential entry points for introducing a carbon price floor in the context of the upcoming EU climate policy process
Economic Growth, Human Development, and Welfare" of the 2018 Report of the International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP). Mission of the IPSP: The International Panel on Social Progress (IPSP) will harness the competence of hundreds of experts about social issues and will deliver a report addressed to all social actors, movements, organizations, politicians and decision-makers, in order to provide them with the best expertise on questions that bear on social change. The Panel will seek consensus whenever possible but will not hide controversies and will honestly present up-to-date arguments and analyses, and debates about them, in an accessible way. The Panel will have no partisan political agenda, but will aim at restoring hope in social progress and stimulating intellectual and public debates. Different political and philosophical views may conceive of social progress in different ways, emphasizing values such as freedom, dignity, or equality. The Panel will retain full independence from political parties, governments, and organizations with a partisan agenda. While the Panel will primarily work for the dissemination of knowledge to all relevant actors in society, it will also foster research on the topics it will study and help to revive interest for research in social long-term prospective analysis
Carbon pricing is essential to achieve a reduction in global CO2 emissions. A carbon price can either be set directly via a carbon tax (price control) or be achieved through a cap-and-trade system (quantity control). While there has been much debate about the relative merits of each approach, cap-and-trade systems have been favoured in the political arena. In principle, they offer the most straightforward way to achieve a country’s emission reduction target by simply setting the cap at the remaining emission budget. Existing emissions trading schemes (ETSs) can be found in Europe, California and Québec, for example.
The coordination of international climate policy, such as linking systems of tradable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances, can greatly lower the cost to all participants of slowing climate change. We consider alternative policy designs of international agreements that would help implement the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement’s GHG reduction pledges. In particular, we examine a stepwise approach to implementing a global system of GHG emissions trading, which includes estimating the benefits of alternative configurations of participating countries. We also illustrate the importance of allowance trading design features, such as the transfer of auction revenues to low-income countries. Numerical simulations indicate that an emissions trading system covering the power and industry sectors in all countries that made unconditional pledges could reduce the associated mitigation costs by more than 72 percent. Moreover, transferring the revenues from the sale of emission allowances could greatly enhance the capability of lower-income countries to meet their Paris Agreement pledges.
Greenhouse gas emissions are stagnating in Germany despite increasing deployment of renewable energy. This makes the government’s Energiewende appear inconsistent and has triggered a discussion on phasing-out coal. The focus has thus turned from niche technology development to the destabilization of the existing high-carbon regime. In this paper we investigate stakeholders’ framings and their perceptions of different policy options to advance the understanding of regime destabilization processes and theory-building in the context of the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions.
We find that actors still form coalitions with traditional allies and cling to established lines of reasoning, although there are indications for a beginning disintegration of the status quo-defending coalition. In their framings, core actors emphasize risks and threats. This confirms that regime destabilization is particularly conflictual and shows that for actors pushing regime change it is more difficult to offer a positive story. Linking policies for phasing-out incumbent technologies to accompanying measures for managing structural change in affected regions may facilitate compromise. The results moreover point to a tension between national and supra-national action as a core issue in destabilization debates. Our insights are relevant for countries in similar transition phases and may inform future comparative research.
The performance of the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading System (ETS) and other cap-and-trade schemes has been under scrutiny because of their inability to create a stable price for greenhouse gas emissions. This article seeks to inform the often confusing debate about the economic performance of cap-and-trade systems over time, with a focus on the EU ETS. Based on a simple intertemporal framework of emissions trading and a review of the literature, we show that different frameworks and notions of efficiency result in both different assessments of performance and different recommended strategies for improving performance. More specifically, we argue that if cap-and-trade systems have temporal flexibility (i.e., they include banking and borrowing of emissions allowances), it can be highly misleading to base the economic assessment on short-term efficiency. We seek to draw attention to the concept of long-term economic performance, which takes into account the intertemporal nature of emissions trading systems. In particular, we identify market and government distortions (e.g., myopia, lack of policy credibility, excessive discounting) that may depress allowance prices and hamper intertemporal efficiency. We then examine whether the recently adopted Market Stability Reserve and the alternative price collar are likely to address these distortions.
The Paris Agreement formulates the goal of GHG neutrality in the second half of this century. Given that Nationally Determined Contributions are as yet insufficient, the question is through which policies can this goal be realized? Identifying policy pathways to ratchet up stringency is instrumental, but little guidance is available. We propose a policy sequencing framework and substantiate it using the cases of Germany and California. Its core elements are policy options to overcome barriers to stringency over time. Such sequencing can advance policy design and hopefully reconcile the controversy between first-best and second-best approaches.