Sectoral linking of carbon markets: A trade-theory analysis

The linking of emission trading systems (ETS) is a widely discussed policy option for future international cooperation on climate change. Benefits are expected from efficiency gains and the alleviation of concerns over competitiveness. However, from trade-theory it is known that due to general equilibrium effects and market distortions, linking may not always be beneficial for all participating countries. Following-up on this debate, we use a Ricardo-Viner type general equilibrium model to study the implications of sectoral linking on carbon emissions (‘leakage’), competitiveness, and welfare. By comparing pre- and post-linking equilibria, we show analytically how global emissions can increase if one of the ‘linked’ countries lacks an economy-wide emissions cap, although in case of a link across idiosyncratic sectors a decrease of emissions (‘anti-leakage’) is also possible. If – as a way to address concerns about competitiveness – a link between the EU ETS and a hypothetical US system is established, the partial emission coverage of the EU ETS can lead to the creation of new distortions between the non-covered domestic and international sector. Finally, we show how the welfare effect from linking can be decomposed into gains-from-trade and terms-of-trade contributions, and how the latter can make the overall effect ambiguous.     

Carbon Trading Reporting: The Case of Spanish Companies

Policy makers, scientists, industry leaders, and academicians all have debated how to restrain global warming and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Three main methods are used: command and control laws and regulations, carbon taxes, and cap and trade schemes. Recognizing the consequences of global warming, all Scandinavian countries introduced a carbon emissions tax in the 1990s. They also ratified the Kyoto Protocol that ran from 2005 through 2012. The European Union (EU) instituted a carbon trading scheme (Emissions Trading System (ETS)) in February 2005 when Kyoto became operative. The three Scandinavian EU members had two methods in place during the 2005–08 period to encourage GHG reduction: taxing and trading. Norway, not in the EU, used just taxes. The other EU members, including Spain, applied just the carbon trading ETS scheme to encourage compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. The fundamental issue addressed is this one: Did publicly held firms headquartered in Spain adequately report participation in the EU carbon emissions trading mechanism? Data to answer this question were obtained from the 2011 and 2012 annual reports for domestic Spanish public companies that received tradable emissions permits. In addition to assessing investor-owned firms’ disclosure posture, the specific method of reporting about carbon emissions permits, whether companies used, banked, or sold the permits granted by the government, also is reviewed. This empirical research effort reports on a complete survey of all available data for the two financial reporting periods that concluded the second phase of the Kyoto Protocol.     

Cap and trade to solve environmental problems ——an analysis of approach in the EU

Environmental problem is a global problem, which has been emphasized by many countries all over the world. To handle the climate change, international community has tried many means. This paper will focus on the approach called "cap and trade", and analyze its application in the EU—the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The effectiveness of the EU ETS in different phases will be analyzed in detail, as well as the benefits of the EU ETS comparing with other means of reducing greenhouse gas. It can be found that "cap and trade" is a successful mechanism to reduce the greenhouse gas s and other countries are supposed to learn from the experience of the EU ETS.     

Europe,the Green Line and the Issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Border: Closing the Gap between Discourse and Practice?

The article analyses how the Europeans (meaning European states and the EC/EU) have progressively turned a discourse about the Israeli-Palestinian border into a foreign policy practice. While much of the literature highlights the existence of a ‘gap between discourse and practice’ when it comes to Europeans’ foreign policy stance towards the Arab-Israeli conflict, we argue that the gap is dynamic and has changed across time. In the absence of an internationally and locally recognised border between Israel and Palestine, the Europeans have aimed at constructing one on the 1949 armistice line, the so-called Green Line. They have done so in stages, by first formulating a discursive practice about the need for a border, then establishing economic practices in the late 1980s-early 1990s, and most recently practicing a legal frame of reference for relations with Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) based on the Green Line. The outcome is that, for what concerns European countries and EU legislation, the Green Line has been increasingly taken as the Israeli-Palestinian border. However, gaps never fully close and more contemporary events seem in fact to point to a re-opening of the gap, as the article explores.     

The innovation impact of the EU Emission Trading System — Findings of company case studies in the German power sector

This paper provides a detailed analysis of how the European Emission Trading System (EU ETS) as the core climate policy instrument of the European Union has impacted innovation. Towards this end, we investigate the impact of the EU ETS on research, development and demonstration (RD&D), adoption, and organizational change. In doing so, we pay particular attention to the relative influences of context factors (policy mix, market factors and public acceptance) and firm characteristics (value chain position, technology portfolio, size and vision). Empirically, our qualitative analysis is based on multiple case studies with 19 power generators, technology providers and project developers in the German power sector which were conducted in 2008/09. We find that the innovation impact of the EU ETS has remained limited so far because of the scheme's initial lack of stringency and predictability and the relatively greater importance of context factors. Additionally, the impact varies significantly across technologies, firms, and innovation dimensions and is most pronounced for RD&D on carbon capture technologies and organizational changes. Our analysis suggests that the EU ETS on its own may not provide sufficient incentives for fundamental changes in corporate innovation activities at a level which ensures political long-term targets can be achieved.     

A Return to ‘Civilisational Geopolitics’ in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era

The prevalence of the discourse of ideological geopolitics during the Cold War meant that both Turkey and the EU belonged to the West by virtue of their ideological orientation. In the absence of this prevalent geopolitical discourse, both the EU and Turkey have spent the 1990s trying to locate themselves geographically. Drawing on the literature on critical approaches to political geography and international relations, this article seeks to answer the question of whether the EU's post-Cold War security discourse on the Mediterranean in general and on relations with Turkey in particular point to a return to the earlier discourse of civilisational geopolitics. The article also presents a reading of Turkish policy makers’ attempts to resist EU's representation of Turkey in ‘non-Europe’ (as with the ‘Middle East’ or the ‘Mediterranean’) as boundary-producing practices which have served to underline the boundaries between the ‘West’ and the ‘non-West’.     

Is the EU ETS a Just Climate Policy?

The European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is in dire straits. Prone to design problems and suffering from the effects of the economic crises the scheme is criticised for its poor achievements. In this paper we will analyse some of the features of this situation from an ethical perspective. The major part is dedicated to the complications within each phase of the EU ETS and to the recent developments it has undergone. We will briefly discuss the remedies suggested by prominent commentators. Furthermore, any policy tool to tackle climate change should be evaluated in view of the profound equity issues that are inherent to the climate problem. We will evaluate the EU ETS according to two justice-based criteria, related to effectiveness and the distribution of the duties involved in climate change, respectively. We will conclude that the EU ETS, in its current form, clearly lacks fairness on both criteria. However, the biggest problem is the unwillingness of EU leaders to mend, what could be, a commendable climate policy tool. To that extent, we argue, those leaders are acting unjustly.     

Neoliberal and neostructuralist perspectives on labour flexibility,poverty and inequality: A critical appraisal

Numerous recent reports by non-governmental organisations (NGOs), academics and international organisations have focused on so-called ‘climate refugees’. This article examines the turn from a discourse of ‘climate refugees’, in which organisations perceive migration as a failure of both mitigation and adaptation to climate change, to one of ‘climate migration’, in which organisations promote migration as a strategy of adaptation. Its focus is the promotion of climate migration management, and it explores the trend of these discourses through two sections. First, it provides an empirical account of the two discourses, emphasising the differentiation between them. It then focuses on the discourse of climate migration, its origins, extent and content, and the associated practices of ‘migration management’. The second part argues that the turn to the promotion of ‘climate migration’ should be understood as a way to manage the insecurity created by climate change. However, international organisations enacts this management within the forms of neoliberal capitalism, including the framework of governance. Therefore, the promotion of ‘climate migration’ as a strategy of adaptation to climate change is located within the tendencies of neoliberalism and the reconfiguration of southern states' sovereignty through governance.     

Strategic partitioning of emission allowances under the EU Emission Trading Scheme

The EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) is breaking new ground in the experience with emission trading regimes across multiple jurisdictions. Since the EU ETS covers only some industries, it implies a hybrid emission control scheme where EU member states must apply complementary domestic emissions regulation for the non-trading sectors of their economies in order to comply with their national emission reduction targets. The EU ETS thus opens up for strategic partitioning of national emissions budgets by the member states between trading and non-trading sectors. In this paper we examine the potential effects of such strategic behavior on compliance cost and emissions prices. We show that concerns on efficiency losses from strategic partitioning are misplaced. In turn, our analysis implicitly indicates significant political economy forces behind EU climate policy, as both cost-effective and strategically motivated partitioning of national emission budgets are far off from the actual break-down between trading and non-trading sectors.     

Higher Price,Lower Costs? Minimum Prices in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme

In this paper, we examine the introduction of a price floor in an emissions trading system (ETS) when some emissions are regulated outside the ETS. We theoretically characterize the conditions under which a price floor enhances welfare. Using a numerical simulation model of the European Union (EU), we find that moderate minimum prices in the EU ETS can reduce the costs of EU climate policy by up to 30 percent. We also find that, because of tax‐interaction effects, the optimal minimum price in the EU ETS should be about four times higher than the average marginal abatement cost in non‐ETS sectors.     

Hot air for sale: a quantitative assessment of Russia’s near-term climate policy options

Since January 2005 the European Union has launched an EU-internal emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) for emission-intensive installations as the central pillar to comply with the Kyoto Protocol. The EU ETS will be linked to a Kyoto emissions market where greenhouse gas emission allowances of signatory Kyoto countries can be traded. In this paper we investigate the implications of Russian market power for environmental effectiveness and regional compliance costs to the Kyoto Protocol taking into account potential linkages between the Kyoto emissions market and the EU ETS. We find that Russia may have incentives to join the EU ETS as long as the latter remains relatively separated from the Kyoto international emissions market. In this case, Russia can exert monopolistic price discrimination between two separated markets thereby maximizing revenues from hot air sales. The EU will be able to substantially reduce compliance costs if it does not restrain itself to EU-internal emission regulation schemes. However, part of the gains from extra-EU emissions trading will come at the expense of environmental effectiveness as (more) hot air will be drawn in.      

Discursive Contestation on Technological Innovation and the Institutional Design of the UNFCCC in the New Climate Change Regime

ABSTRACT

Under the new climate change regime ushered in by the 2015 Paris Agreement, technology development and transfer have emerged as essential means of global action for climate change mitigation and adaptation. In particular, technological innovation has appeared as a leading component to be accelerated, encouraged, and enabled under the Paris Agreement. However, while making the rule book to implement the Paris Agreement, a clash has occurred between developed and developing countries over the meaning of technological innovation and the intervening policies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to support innovation in developing countries. By exploring rule-making processes and expert-meetings under the UNFCCC, this paper examines how this discursive contestation has progressed in relation to the meaning of technological innovation and the creation of an appropriate institutional design to support developing countries’ achievement of technological innovation. The analysis is based on the theoretical framework of discursive contestation between the two discourses of de-regulatory ecological modernisation and green governmentality with right-to-development. This research concludes by positing some policy implications.     

The Militarisation and Marketisation of Nature: An Alternative Lens to ‘Climate-Conflict’

Policies addressing climate change are driving major transformations in access to global land, forests and water as they create new ‘green’ markets that reinforce, and attracts the financial grid and its speculators. This leads us to examine the rise of state violence and subsequent environmental policies in forests, transferring into both ‘fortress’ and ‘participatory’ conservation, enhancing this relationship with new environmental commodity markets. We go on to document how the new and intensifying commodification of the environment associated with climate change is manifest in conflicts linked to the UN-REDD+ programme, industrial tree plantations (ITPs), and land-use practices associated with conservation and biofuels. We trace conflicts to business practices associated with land acquisitions and mining practices which claim to address climate change and mitigate ecological crises. This paper thus grapples with systemic issues of the modern industrial economy and the mechanisms legitimising and advancing the militarisation and marketisation of nature.     

Getting the Resilience Right: Climate Change and Development Policy in the ‘African Age’

ABSTRACT

Founded on a call to place climate change adaptation and climate risk management at the heart of contemporary development practice, the World Bank’s Africa Climate Business Plan presents an ambitious agenda for coordinating $19bn of loans, grants and investment over the coming decade. The centrepiece of this recasting of development thinking is the notion of resilience, which ties together the various activities proposed under the Plan. Resilience must respectively be strengthened, empowered and enabled in order for African countries to withstand climate change impacts. In this paper we subject this new climate-resilient development discourse to critical scrutiny. Using the theoretical lens of post-politics, we caution how the ill-defined category of resilience is deployed to reinforce a profoundly depoliticising agenda in which climate change is posited as an external threat to an otherwise seamless narrative of African advancement. In so doing, we illustrate how the Bank obscures the contested histories of African development and uses the discourse of climate-resilient development to perpetuate its neoliberal agenda within the continent.     

Gardens of Eden or Hearts of Darkness? The Genealogy of Discourses on Environmental Insecurity and Climate Wars in Africa

This article argues that the securitisation of Africa’s environment and climate in the early twenty-first century has less to do with multidisciplinary inquiry into the complexities of climate change, development and conflict, and more with historically established paradigms of thinking about Africa, its ecosystems and notions of disorder and violence. Securitisation is the result of a specific moment in the post–Cold War era with its particular geopolitical configuration and of deeply embedded modes of imagining the African continent, its peoples and their relationship with the environments they inhabit. The main objective of this article is to historicise and politicise the prevailing dystopian discourse about climate-induced insecurity. I show that the assumptions and chains of causality that constitute today’s climate wars narrative are remarkably similar in nature to the environmental narratives that underpinned imperialist and post-independence discourses on environment and development, legitimising highly authoritarian interventions against local populations by governments.     

The effectiveness of anti-leakage policies in the European Union: results for Austria

With the third trading period of the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) starting in 2013, the system of allocating emission allowances will significantly change: In contrast to the previous two trading periods, auctioning of the allowances should now be the rule rather than the exception. Accompanying this policy change, concerns over competitiveness of energy intensive, trade exposed sectors as well as over limited environmental effectiveness via the channel of carbon leakage, have regained prominence. In this paper, we thus explore the impacts of potential EU policies to counter losses in international competitiveness and carbon leakage from the perspective of Austria. Based on numerical simulations with a computable general equilibrium model, we evaluate three policy options: an input subsidy for carbon allowances (thus reflecting the planned partially free allocation mechanism in the third EU ETS phase), a subsidy for domestic production, and an export rebate based on sectoral CO₂ costs. Our results show that each policy has the potential to support domestic production in exposed sectors relative to a full auctioning scenario and thus increase competitiveness. However, none is imperatively effective at reducing Austria’s net carbon emissions: while the carbon trade balance is improved and hence leakage declines, the tradability of emission permits within the EU ETS allows CO₂ emissions from Austria’s ETS output to increase. A cost benefit analysis indicates that the two policies promoting domestic output and exports are more cost effective than the CO₂ input subsidy.     

Art,Geopolitics and Metapolitics at Tate Galleries London

Art galleries and museums have often been considered as sites at which the international and the political are both enacted and reworked. But how exactly does art ‘do’ geopolitics? Taking existing work on art and geopolitics in the gallery and museum as its departure point, this article advances a specific conceptual argument for how art does geopolitics that connects thinking in this area with broader debates in aesthetics and politics. Building on Jacques Rancière’s account of art as a dispositif, it explores the aesthetic politics – or metapolitics – through which artistic interventions have raised questions of oil within the Tate Galleries in London. Drawing out its ambiguities as well as potential critical implications, the article illustrates distinct ways in which the metapolitics of art may be activated via a discussion of The Robinson Institute, 2012, and of a series of interventions conducted since 2010 by the group Liberate Tate. In conclusion, the article draws out connections between the metapolitics of art and questions of governmentality.     

Normative Power Europe and the Moral Economy of Africa–EU Ties: A Conceptual Reorientation of ‘Normative Power’

‘Normative power’ is an increasingly popularised concept in the study of EU external relations in fields including military policy, human rights, and international trade. Defined by Manners, it acknowledges the normative foundations of the European project, examines how Europe acts to (re)shape internationally accepted norms, and makes the claim that Europe ought to influence external partners' conception of ‘normal’ behaviour in pursuit of a just global order. This article, however, argues that a moral economy perspective is central to a critical reorientation of the concept of normative power towards appraisal of discrepancies between nominal EU norms and material EU policy outcomes. Examining Europe's ‘normative power’ in its relations with the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, it demonstrates how a moral economy of ACP–EU ties has been instituted in negotiation with European ethical norms as to solidarity with ‘the poor’. Nevertheless, the moral economy of ACP–EU ties is seen not to be ‘moral’ in terms of outcomes for vulnerable citizens in ACP countries. Rather the embedding of moral norms concerning pro-poor ‘development’ has rationalised asymmetric economic ties. ‘Normative power’ is understood as the EU's utilisation of moral norms in the public legitimisation and self-rationalisation of geopolitical interest and commercial gain in its relations with external ‘partners’.     

浅析欧盟利用绿色壁垒限制我国企业的政策趋势

近年来,绿色壁垒成为欧盟限制我国企业的最新趋势。本文对欧盟及其成员国近年来的政策进行了文献调研,分析了这一趋势的表现、成因、影响与应对建议,主要内容如下:欧盟科技创新政策正不断提高绿色壁垒,主要表现为提升进口产品环保标准、支持当地企业环保转型以及推动国际经贸规则中环保标准的提高。我国企业或将受到较大影响。究其原因,绿色壁垒与传统限制手段相比具有更多优势。未来,原材料出口、机电产品等与欧盟环保差距较大的领域可能受到较大影响。建议我国政府密切关注欧盟情况,做好前瞻性应对预案,推动我国企业环保转型。     

Population–Environment Interactions: European Migration, Population Composition and Climate Change

The paper addresses the collision of two twenty-first Century transitions—the unprecedented change in the size, composition, density and distribution of the human population, and rapid change in the earth’s natural environment, in part a response to the above. It argues that it is important to consider these aspects of population change and environment together in order to understand the reality of any mitigation that may be made. Following a review of research which is beginning to address not only the environmental impact of population growth, but also of changes in density, distribution and composition, the paper turns to explore the interaction of population composition and density with environmental change through addressing interactions between migration, ageing populations and climate change. It considers a key population question facing the EU, that of the demographic deficit, and addresses how the mitigating role of migration will be affected by future climate change. It thus considers whether migration is a valid policy approach in the context of Europe’s demographic deficit and the impact of climate change on this relationship.