This paper outlines recent developments in U.S. climate policies. Although the United States does not participate in the Kyoto Mechanism, a number of climate policies are being implemented at state level as well as at the federal level. First, we report and compare the federal cap and trade...

China started seven carbon cap-and-trade pilot programs in order to inform the development of a future national cap-and-trade market. This paper assesses the design of three of the longer-running cap-and-trade pilot programs in Guangdong, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Based on extensive stakeholder...

Until recently, most attention to U.S. climate policy has focused on legislative efforts to introduce a price on carbon through cap and trade. In the absence of such legislation, the Clean Air Act is a potentially potent alternative. Decisions regarding existing stationary sources will have the...

It appears inevitable, absent legislative intervention, that regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA) will move beyond mobile sources to the industrial and power facilities that emit most U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze the mechanisms available to the EPA for regulating such...

Linkage of cap-and-trade systems is typically advocated by economists on a general analogy with the beneficial linking of free-trade areas and on the specific grounds that linkage will ensure cost effectiveness among the linked jurisdictions. An appropriate and widely accepted specification for...

Over the last half decade, a variety of federal legislative proposals for limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been put forward, most of which would set a price on carbon. As of early 2013, the one politically plausible policy appears to be a carbon tax, passed as part of a larger fiscal...

Virtually every analysis of cap-and-trade programs assumes that firms must surrender permits as they pollute. However, no program, existing or proposed, requires such continual compliance. Some (e.g. the Acid Rain Program limiting SO2 emissions) require compliance once a year; others (e.g. the...

In 2005, the European Union introduced the largest and most ambitious emissions trading program in the world to meet its Kyoto commitments for the containment of global climate change. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has some distinctive features that differentiate it from the more...

Price collars have frequently been advocated to restrict the price of emissions permits. Consequently, collars were incorporated in the three bills languishing in Congress as well as in California?'s AB-32; Europeans are now considering price collars for EU ETS. In advocating collars, most...

Previous analyses of cap-and-trade programs regulating carbon emissions assumed that firms must surrender permits as they pollute. If so, then the price of permits may remain constant over measurable intervals if the government injects additional permits at a ceiling price or may even collapse...