Models with induced technological change in the energy sector often predict a gradual expansion of renewable energies, and a substantial share of fossil fuels remaining in the energy mix through the end of our century. However, there are historical examples where new products or technologies...

In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit, the USA announced an emissions reduction target of 17% by 2020 (relative to 2005), and the EU of 20-30% (relative to 1990). For the same time horizon, China offered to reduce the CO2-intensity of its economy by 40-45% (relative to 2005), but...

Among policy instruments to control future greenhouse gas emissions, well-calibrated general intensity targets are known to lead to lower uncertainty on the amount of abatement than emissions quotas (Jotzo and Pezzey 2004). The authors test whether this result holds in a broader framework, and...

In this article the problem of credible commitment in carbon policy is discussed. Investors favour long-term predictability of the policy, but without any external enforcement mechanisms a commitment made by a government can be withdrawn, leading to scepticism and lack of credibility. This...

A framework was devised for policy-makers to assess direct bilateral cap-and-trade linkages. A systematic analysis of the economic, political and regulatory implications indicates potential benefits along with a number of potentially negative sideeffects. Theoretically, economic benefits are...

In this paper, a difference-in-differences estimator on panel data for 30 developing and 21 industrialized countries is employed over the period 1971–2005 to examine how patterns of energy use (characterized by the consumption of primary energy carriers, sectoral energy use and carbon...

Without a comprehensive global climate agreement, carbon leakage remains a contentious issue. Consumption-based pricing of emissions—which could in practice be implemented with a full border tax adjustment (BTA)—has been forwarded as an option to increase the effectiveness of unilateral...

The implementation of mitigation policies will be complicated by several real-world imperfections ("second-best conditions") and constraints typically not included in the more idealized economies assumed in Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), based on which such policies are derived. But which...