Agent-Based Modeling of Global Carbon Trading and Its Policy Implications for China in the Post-Kyoto Era

Carbon trading is an important component of global responses to climate change. Using agent-based modeling, this study constructs a global carbon trading model (GCTM), and simulates the effectiveness of the trading mechanism. Results show that: (1) quota allocation is the fundamental premise of carbon trading; (2) under the carbon trading mechanism, the cumulative per capita emissions of developed countries are still much higher than those in developing countries; (3) carbon trading could be an important policy choice to meet China’s future emissions targets; and (4) to maximize incomes in the long run, China can set aside part of current quotas and use them in the future.     

试论我国碳排放权期货市场的构建

随着全球温室效应和气候变暖问题的日益严重,二氧化碳的减排越来越受到了人们的重视,以二氧化碳排放权为标的的国际碳排放权交易市场应运而生。期货市场具有价格发现、套期保值等功能,对于发展迅猛的碳排放权交易市场来说,建立碳排放权期货市场有重要的意义。本文首先简要介绍碳排放权交易市场,接着阐述我国建立碳排放权期货市场的必要性,然后分析我国建立碳排放权期货市场的可行性,最后提出我国开展碳排放权期货交易的设想。     

Climate Change and Asset Prices: Are Corporate Carbon Disclosure and Performance Priced Appropriately?

This paper empirically assesses the relevance of information on corporate climate change disclosure and performance to asset prices, and discusses whether this information is priced appropriately. Findings indicate that corporate disclosures of quantitative greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and, to a lesser extent, carbon performance are value relevant. We use hand‐collected information on quantitative GHG emissions for 433 European companies and build portfolios based on GHG disclosure and performance. We regress portfolios on a standard four factor model extended for industry effects over the years 2005 to 2009. Results show that investors achieved abnormal risk‐adjusted returns of up to 13.05% annually by exploiting inefficiently priced positive effects of (complete) GHG emissions disclosure and good corporate climate change performance in terms of GHG efficiency. Results imply that, firstly, information costs involved in carbon disclosure and management do not present a burden on corporate financial resources. Secondly, investors should not neglect carbon disclosure and performance when making investment decisions. Thirdly, during the period analysed, financial markets were inefficient in pricing publicly available information on carbon disclosure and performance. Mandatory and standardised information on carbon performance would consequently not only increase market efficiency but result in better allocation of capital within the real economy.     

Can enhancing financial inclusivity lower climate risks by inhibiting carbon emissions? Contextual evidence from emerging economies

Climate change is regarded as a global concern whereby lowering climate risks, especially by curbing greenhouse gas emissions, has become a critically important policy agenda worldwide. Hence, this study assesses whether financial inclusion, alongside energy efficiency improvement, renewable energy use, economic growth, international trade, and urbanization, can mitigate carbon dioxide emissions in 22 emerging economies. Considering the period of analysis from 2008 to 2018 and utilizing econometric methods robust to handling cross-sectionally-dependent, heterogeneous, and endogenous panel data, the findings reveal that financial inclusion is directly associated with higher discharges of carbon dioxide. Contrarily, energy efficiency improvement and higher share of renewable energy in the aggregate energy consumption level inhibit carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, energy efficiency gains moderate the financial inclusion-emissions nexus by jointly reducing carbon emissions with greater financial inclusivity. Finally, the results indicate that economic growth, international trade, and urbanization trigger climate risks by boosting the emission figures. In light of these findings, several carbon dioxide-mitigating policies are recommended for neutralizing climate risks in emerging countries of concern.     

全球金融危机对全球应对气候变化进程的影响

美国次贷危机进一步加深,并推动全球经济衰退。本文分析了该危机对全球应对气候变化进程造成的影响,随后对基于排放交易体系和碳市场对未来全球应对气候变化进行了展望,最后,提出了我国的思考,主要是:正确认识金融危机的短期性与应对气候变化的长期性;正确认识金融危机对我国应对气候变化进程带来的挑战与机遇;迅速抓住机遇,有步骤推进我国低碳经济转型;探索适合我国特色的低碳经济促进型的金融体系。     

Climate transition risk in sovereign bond markets

Is climate transition risk factored into sovereign bond markets? We find that carbon dioxide emissions, natural resources rents, and renewable energy consumption—as measures of transition risk—significantly affect yields and spreads. Countries with lower carbon emissions incur lower borrowing costs. Advanced countries with reduced earnings from natural resources rents and increased renewable energy consumption are associated with lower borrowing costs, which differ from the effects in developing countries. Given the threat that climate change poses to the global economy and the fast materialization of transition risk, we advocate an increase in the significance of climate transition risk factors as determinants in sovereign bond markets.     

Global trading of carbon dioxide permits with noncompliant polluters

An international mechanism intended to curb global carbon dioxide emissions, mirrored after the Kyoto Protocol, is composed of decentralized regulatory and enforcement authorities and two supranational agencies that are in charge of promoting international transfers and imposing punitive fines. Regulatory enforcement is costly and imperfect. Polluting firms located in various sovereign nations may not comply with emission regulations. We show that there is a combination of decentralized emission quotas and centralized income transfers and fines, with decentralized leadership in policy making, which induces regional regulatory authorities to internalize all environmental and pecuniary externalities.      

International trade and climate change

This paper provides a selective review of the interaction between international trade, international trade policies, environmental policies and climate change. The focus is on the role that international trade and the existence of countries have on the generation of emissions leading to greenhouse gas stocks in the atmosphere and hence, potentially, to climate change and on the role of trade and environmental policies in dealing with this global externality. We first review the question of whether trade exacerbates or contributes to the climate change problem by increasing global emissions, a particularly important issue being the pollution haven problem. Then we consider environmental policies and trade. We analyse non-cooperative environmental policies and investigate whether trade undermines the effectiveness of unilateral environmental policies, in which carbon leakage and international competitiveness are of particular importance. To deal with climate change, cooperation among countries is important. In this aspect, we review the interactions between trade and environmental policies, border tax adjustment policies, and the role of the World Trade Organization in combating climate change arising from economic activities.     

我国碳金融发展的形势展望与政策建议

当前，应对气候变化已成为全球问题，其中市场机制和金融工具的作用非常关键。我国作为全球最主要的温室气体排放国之一，减排的国际压力可能继续上升。而实现国民经济的长期可持续发展，也需要经济发展方式从能源消耗模式转向低碳模式。这种长期减排的压力给我国碳金融的发展带来了机遇。但以现实条件而言，当前我国碳金融仍处于非常初级的探索阶段，为此，文章提出了短期内推动我国碳金融发展的关注重点及相关政策建议。     

Governance and Climate Change: A Success Story in Mobilizing Investor Support for Corporate Responses to Climate Change

Until fairly recently, the main approach to getting business to respond to climate change has been top‐down efforts to regulate emissions and enact various forms of “carbon pricing.” The aim of such efforts has been to make businesses “internalize” the costs associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Governments are expected to set the environmental protection rules for companies in their respective countries, and markets are expected to adjust to the new regulations and carbon prices. But this classical approach to economic policy does not work when applied to a global “public goods” challenge like trying to limit the extent and effects of climate change. Instead of a top‐down approach, in which economic actors are forced to respond to regulations imposed on them, the Paris climate agreement of 2015 was reached using a bottom‐up approach centered on the concept of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)—along with a process that ended up encouraging the participation of all economic actors, not just governments. The authors provide an account of how the Paris agreement was reached, and why the “Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition” under the auspices of the United Nations is the most important of several private‐sector initiatives that are changing the way corporations operate. Thanks in large part to the PDC, investors can now undertake meaningful corporate governance action on climate change. With GHG emissions from a particular companies’ operations now much easier to measure, objective performance metrics on GHG emissions can now be set by boards and verified by shareholders. And current decarbonized indexes can be used as performance benchmarks for asset managers’ compensation, which can be tied to return outperformance relative to a “decarbonized” index.     

Carbon Accounting: Challenges for Research in Management Control and Performance Measurement

Carbon reduction programs and corporate emissions reporting have expanded rapidly across firms in response to climate change and global warming. This development is partly driven by institutional demands and partly by value creation considerations. The consequences of these developments for management accounting and control (MAC) are not clear, despite anecdotal evidence that suggests an increasing effort to incorporate carbon accounting into traditional decision and reporting processes. The reasons for this lack of clarity are the disproportionate focus in practice on carbon disclosure, compared to a small number of empirical studies, and the absence of an academic debate in this novel area from a MAC perspective. This paper seeks to stimulate such an academic debate by reviewing the extant literature, identifying key theoretical and empirical shortcomings of extant academic research, and outlining some directions for future studies on carbon accounting. These directions are inspired by more established MAC research that may help to guide and organize MAC research in the emerging and exciting field of carbon accounting.     

Does the market value greenhouse gas emissions? Evidence from multi-country firm data

Despite increasing global attention on corporate carbon emissions, few studies have examined the value relevance of carbon emission information in the international context. This paper examines whether carbon emission information voluntarily disclosed by a firm affects its market value. After controlling for a firm's likelihood to provide voluntary carbon disclosures, we find that the level of carbon emissions is negatively related to firm value. This negative impact is more prominent for firms in countries that have a national carbon emission trading scheme and stringent environmental regulations. Furthermore, corporate governance is found to reduce the negative value effect of carbon emissions, indicating that shareholders have favorable perceptions regarding the carbon management ability of firms with good corporate governance. Cultural contexts such as uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation also affect the value effect of risks and future liabilities associated with carbon emissions. We find that the value-decreasing effect of carbon emissions is weaker in countries characterized by high uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientations.     

Can China reduce the carbon emissions of its manufacturing exports by moving up the global value chain?

This study analyses whether embedding in the global value chain has an impact on the carbon emissions of China’s exports. We develop a carbon decomposition model and use panel data for 14 manufacturing industries in China from 1995 to 2009 to empirically analyse the impact of China’s exports on carbon emissions. Our results show that the GVC effect on China’s carbon emissions embodied in manufacturing exports outweighs the scale, composition and technique effects.     

Price discovery analysis of green equity indices using robust asymmetric vector autoregression

Covering the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012), we perform a price discovery analysis to determine Granger causality relationships for a range of prominent green equity indices with the broader equity and commodity markets. Three pivotal contributions are made. Firstly, an expanded database is used that gives greater depth to the price discovery analysis relative to previous literature. Prominent global, regional and sectoral green equity indices are considered, as well as a broader set of commodities including crude oil, natural gas and emissions. The inclusion of natural gas recognises its role as the transition fossil fuel to a low carbon economy. In addition to the main European Union Allowance traded under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) prices are also included in the emissions database to capture activities under the global Clean Development Mechanism. Secondly, a problem with conventional symmetric vector autoregression is that its implementation commonly leads to large occurrences of insignificant parameters. Therefore, as a first layer of robustness, we utilise an asymmetric vector autoregression model to perform the Granger causality testing, which addresses this limitation by means of allowing different lag specifications among the system variables. Thirdly, explicit recognition is made in our study of the multiple comparisons bias inherent in our high-dimensional testing framework, which is the non-negligible likelihood of identifying statistically significant results by pure chance alone. As a second layer of robustness, we utilise a generalised Holm correction method to control this source of bias. At conventional statistical significance levels, we find that the FTSE 100 and FTSE Global Small Cap equity indices have a causal effect on all of the green equity indices, with limited evidence of causality in the opposite direction. Within the green equity markets, we find evidence that the chosen sectoral index has a Granger causal effect on one of the two global indices considered and also the regional index. This price transmission provides modest evidence that the global green economy is becoming ever more integrated. NBP gas is shown to have a causal effect on all of the green equity indices, whereas we find no such evidence for Brent oil. The former observation may reflect the increasing role of gas as the transition fuel to a low carbon economy, playing a key role in decisions on power generation mix and associated capital investment. Finally, we find no evidence that EUA or CER prices have a causal effect on green stocks, consistent with previous findings and likely reflecting the excessively low prices being commanded for compliance permits in the European emissions markets.     

The effects of board characteristics and sustainable compensation policy on carbon performance of UK firms

This study examines the effects of board characteristics and sustainable compensation policy on carbon reduction initiatives and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of a firm. We use firm fixed effect model to analyse data from 256 non-financial UK firms covering a period of 13 years (2002–2014). Our estimation results suggest that board independence and board gender diversity have positive associations with carbon reduction initiatives. In addition, environment-social-governance based compensation policy is found to be positively associated with carbon reduction initiatives. However, we do not find any relationship between corporate governance variables and GHG emissions of a firm. Overall, our evidence suggests that corporate boards and executive management tend to focus on a firm's process-oriented carbon performance, without improving actual carbon performance in the form of reduced GHG emissions. The findings have important implications for practitioners and policymakers with respect to the effectiveness of internal corporate governance mechanisms in addressing climate change risks, and possible linkage between corporate governance reform and carbon related policies.     

积极应对外资大量进入中国碳交易市场的政策研究

随着近年来中国成为全球最大的碳减排量国家,以英国气候变化资本集团为首的外资企业开始将资金投入中国的清洁发展机制（Clean Development Mechanism,以下简称CDM）市场。外资大量进入中国碳交易市场,在推动中国CDM市场发展的同时,也危及了中国碳交易市场的发展安全,不利于中国推进节能减排战略目标的进程。对此,中国应加快碳交易机制建设,建立国内统一的CDM市场交易体系,利用碳交易市场推进人民币国际化,鼓励金融机构开发碳金融产品,加强对碳排放权交易资源综合管理进行战略储备等等。     

全球金融周期与跨境资本流动

本文从全球42个主要的股票市场指数提取全球股票市场因子,作为全球金融周期的代理变量,考察全球金融周期对跨境资本总流入的影响。结果发现:(1)当全球股票市场因子(全球风险规避和不确定性)上升时,跨境资本流入显著下降;(2)一国处于经济繁荣时期,经济增速和利率处于相对较高水平,全球金融周期对资本流入的影响会减弱;(3)一国资本账户开放程度或金融发展水平越高,全球金融周期对资本流入的影响会越强;(4)更具弹性的汇率制度尽管不能完全隔绝全球金融周期的影响,但相比固定汇率制度,可提高一国抵御全球金融周期冲击的能力;(5)美国货币政策冲击是全球金融周期的重要驱动因素,并通过全球金融周期影响跨境资本流动。本文的政策含义在于,一国应夯实经济基本面、采取富有弹性的汇率制度和适当的资本管制措施,以缓解全球金融周期给资本流动带来的冲击。     

市场激励型环境规制可以推动企业技术创新吗？——基于中国碳排放权交易机制的自然实验

提高环境标准以推进企业低碳环保转型是供给侧结构性改革的重要内容。在众多环境规制的政策工具中,以市场激励为导向的排放权交易机制在西方国家得到了较为广泛的认可与应用,但是否同样适用于尚处在转轨期的新型中国市场还有待进一步检验。本文基于中国2013年开始试点实施的碳排放权交易机制,考察了市场激励型的环境规制对中国企业技术创新的影响。研究发现:碳排放权交易机制的实施显著推动了企业的技术创新,且当碳市场的流动性程度越高,该市场激励型环境规制对企业技术创新的推动作用更加明显。但企业成本转嫁能力会在一定程度上削弱该环境规制的积极影响,当企业所承受的产品市场竞争程度更低、企业对客户和供应商的议价能力更高时,碳排放权交易机制对企业技术创新的推动作用相对降低。综上,本文的研究不仅从市场激励的角度丰富了环境规制与企业技术创新的相关文献,同时也为中国碳排放权交易实施的政策效果提供了微观证据,研究结论可为后续在全国范围内统一推进碳排放权交易市场建设提供政策参考。     

The evolution of emissions trading in the European Union – The role of policy networks,knowledge and policy entrepreneurs

This paper starts with a recapitulation of how emissions trading became a cornerstone of the European Union’s climate policy. While a whole bouquet of reasons can be identified the major reasons why the EU Commission decided to pursue the establishment of an emissions trading scheme within the EU are: (1) the integration of international emissions trading into the Kyoto Protocol; (2) the failure of the 6th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the withdrawal of the United States from the Kyoto Protocol negotiations; and (3) the unsuccessful attempt to introduce an EU-wide CO₂-tax. Other reasons were the fact that emissions trading did not need unanimity in the European Council like the CO₂-tax; the economic efficiency of emissions trading which appealed not only to the Commission but also to industry and Member States; the danger of a fragmented carbon market as the United Kingdom and Denmark had already set up domestic emissions trading schemes that were incompatible; the incentive a European emissions trading scheme would be for the formation of a global carbon market; and the possibility to influence investment strategies of power companies towards a sustainable modernisation of the EU’s power generation infrastructure.Drawing upon these preconditions, this paper analyses the development of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). Based on the fact that the EU is embedded in a multi-level policy-making architecture which encourages the emergence of policy networks it is argued that the EU ETS has been shaped by an (informal) issue-specific policy network established by some staff members from DG Environment, including individuals knowledgeable on emissions trading – such as experts from consultancies, environmental NGOs and the business sector. It is argued that within this European policy network on emissions trading the European Emissions Trading Directive – as adopted on 13 October 2003 – has been negotiated and developed. It is concluded that the sharing of knowledge about this relatively new and largely unknown regulatory instrument and about design options for a potential European emissions trading scheme was the key momentum for the establishment and continuity of this policy network and that the ability of managing knowledge generation processes was the main factor to allow for a few staff members from DG Environment to play a dominant role as policy entrepreneurs in developing the European Emissions Trading Directive, even beyond their formal role of proposing the scheme as representatives from the EU Commission.     

Carbon risk and corporate capital structure

This research exploits Australia's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates the country to reduce carbon emissions, thereby exposing Australian firms to increased carbon risk, as a quasi-natural experiment to examine the causal effect of carbon risk on firm capital structure. We find that the Kyoto Protocol ratification leads to a decrease in financial leverage of heavy carbon emitting firms and such a decrease is more pronounced for financially constrained firms. Further analysis indicates that increased carbon risk leads to higher financial distress risk, which motivates firms to decrease financial leverage.