To reach climate neutrality, carbon emissions from the production of basic materials need to be significantly reduced. For governments' support measures to be consistent with their World Trade Organization obligations, they need to be compatible with the WTO's Agreement on Subsidies and...

As part of its Green Deal, the European Commission is considering the introduction of border carbon adjustments and alternative measures. The measures, which would primarily apply to basic materials like steel and cement, pursue a double objective: they are aimed at enhancing the effectiveness...

This paper explores whether governments can ban carbon-intensive materials through product carbon requirements. By setting near-zero emission limits for the production of materials to be sold within a jurisdiction, governments would accelerate the phase out of carbon-intensive production...

A world of unequal carbon prices requires measures aimed at preventing carbon leakage. Climate policy imperatives demand that such measures must be compatible with the goal of sending a carbon price signal down the value chain. For carbon intensive materials, the combination of dynamic free...

CO2-Abgaben bergen die Gefahr, einkommensschwächere Haushalte überdurchschnittlich zu belasten. Zur Abwehr solcher regressiven Verteilungswirkungen wird erwogen, einen Teil der Einnahmen durch einen Pro-Kopf-Bonus an die Bürger*innen zurückzugeben. Der vorliegende Beitrag entwickelt einen...

Natural gas prices in Germany saw a strong increase at the end of 2021, subsequently worsening with the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, raising concerns about the distributional consequences. Our study shows that low-income households are affected the most by the natural gas price...

Renewable energy installations are rapidly gaining market share due to falling technology costs and supportive policies. Meanwhile, the energy price crisis resulting from the Russian-Ukrainian war has shifted the energy policy debate toward the question of how consumers can benefit more from the...

We investigate policies for increasing recycling to facilitate decarbonization within the basic material sector, including market-based policies, such as carbon pricing, advanced disposal fee and minimum recycled content requirement, and non-market policies, such as product design standard. We...

We assess the incorporation of wind or solar resource quality into renewable auction design as a means to geographically diversify renewable energy production and to reduce costs to consumers by reducing scarcity rents at sites with high resource quality. With a stylized auction model, we model...

In the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009, developed countries agreed to provide start-up finance for adaptation in developing countries and expressed the ambition to scale this up to $100 billion per year by 2020. The financial mechanisms to deliver this support have to be tailored to country...