Alternative Approaches to Cost Containment in a Cap-and-Trade System

We compare several emissions reduction instruments, including quantity policies with banking and borrowing, price policies, and hybrid policies (safety valve and price collar), using a dynamic model with stochastic baseline emissions. The instruments are compared under the design goal of obtaining the same expected cumulative emissions across all options. Based on simulation analysis with the model parameterized to values relevant to proposed US climate mitigation policies, we find that restrictions on banking and borrowing, including the provision of interest rates on the borrowings, can severely limit the value of the policy, depending on the regulator-chosen allowance issuance path. Although emissions taxes generally provide the lowest expected abatement costs, a cap-and-trade system combined with either a safety valve or a price collar can be designed to provide expected abatement costs near those of a tax, but with lower emissions variance than a tax. Consistently, a price collar is more cost-effective than a safety valve for a given expected cumulative emissions outcome because it encourages inexpensive abatement when abatement costs decline.     

The regulatory choice of noncompliance in emissions trading programs

This paper addresses the following question: To achieve a fixed aggregate emissions target cost-effectively, should emissions trading programs be designed and implemented to achieve full compliance, or does allowing a certain amount of noncompliance reduce the costs of reaching the emissions target? The total costs of achieving the target consist of aggregate abatement costs, monitoring costs, and the expected costs of collecting penalties from noncompliant firms. Under common assumptions, I show that allowing noncompliance is cost-effective only if violations are enforced with an increasing marginal penalty. However, one can design a policy that induces full compliance with a constant marginal penalty that meets the aggregate emissions target with lower expected costs. This last result does not depend on setting an arbitrarily high constant marginal penalty. In fact, the marginal penalty need not be higher than the equilibrium marginal penalty under the policy with the increasing marginal penalty, and can actually be lower. Finally, tying the marginal penalty directly to the permit price allows the policy objective to be achieved without any knowledge of firms’ abatement costs.     

Climate Policy,Uncertainty, and the Role of Technological Innovation

We study how uncertainty about climate change severity affects the relative benefits of early abatement and a portfolio of research and development (R&D) in lowering future abatement costs. Optimal early abatement depends on the curvature of the marginal benefit and marginal abatement cost (MAC) functions and how the uncertain parameter affects marginal benefits. R&D in a particular technology depends on whether uncertainty increases early abatement; whether investment lowers marginal costs for that technology; whether R&D lowers the slope of that technology's MAC function; and the shape of that technology's MAC function. We illustrate, focusing on the role of backstop technologies.     

Strategic Behavior,Private Information,and Decentralization in the European Union Emissions Trading System

In the European Union Emissions Trading System, the supply of carbon permits is determined in a decentralized manner by Member States. Alternatively, the supply could be determined by an EU central authority. We analyze whether decentralization leads to lower total abatement costs under various assumptions about the behavior of Member States and the privacy of information about their abatement costs. If Member States do not behave strategically, then decentralization is preferred, regardless of whether abatement costs are private information. If the Member States behave strategically, then decentralization may or may not be preferred, depending on the degree of uncertainty about abatement cost parameters, the variation in emission endowments, and the number of Member States.     

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.     

The meta-technology cost ratio: An indicator for judging the cost performance of CO2 reduction

This paper constructs an innovative ratio of meta-technology cost (MTCR) by combining the meta-frontier framework and shadow price model. This ratio is not only an indicator to account for country-specific technology heterogeneity or technology heterogeneity across a group of countries to measure improvement toward the meta-frontier. This ratio also computes the absolute value difference between the real and ideal minimum marginal abatement costs for the non-market good CO₂ to achieve specific emission reduction. An equally weighted combination of technological readiness and innovation is used to classify countries into groups. The value of the MTCR via the computation of the meta marginal abatement cost (MAC^meta) and group marginal abatement cost (MAC^group-k) allows us to identify the possible improvement of marginal abatement cost (MAC) in absolute value. That is, observation of the MTCR, along with its components the MAC^meta and MAC^group-k, provides more intuitive and comprehensive information for commanding the cost performance of CO₂ reduction than the traditional meta-technology ratio alone.     

Emission trading in Europe with an exchange rate

This paper explores the analytical and empirical properties of a new method for emission trading according to a fixed exchange rate. The exchange rate is based on the ratios of the marginal costs of abatement in the optimal solution in order to account for the impact of the location of emission sources on the deposition. It is shown that, generally, this system will not achieve the optimal solution and does not guarantee that environmental deposition constraints are not violated, although total abatement costs are always reduced. A routine was developed to mimic trading as a bilateral, sequential process, subject to an exchange rate. In the example used, results for SO₂ emissions in Europe show that, starting from a uniform reduction, exchange-rate trading achieves higher cost savings than one-to-one trading, without achieving the cost minimum. Sulfur deposition targets are not violated since the initial emission allocation overfulfilled targets at many places. The results are sensitive to: pre-trade emission levels, the transaction costs, the availability of information on potential cost savings and assumptions made on the behavior of trading partners.     

Regulating chemical emissions with risk-based environmental taxation

This paper develops a policy of risk-based environmental taxation for chemical emissions. A scoring index of chemical risk values for target pollutants first takes into account potential human health risk and ecological risk. A common tax base called the risk unit, which reflects the risk values from the scoring index, is then identified for individual pollutants. By determining the number of risk units for target emissions and levying a single tax rate on one risk unit, the risk-based tax system assigns a different pollution price to each chemical release. The policy sets rates according to marginal damage and provides target industry with permanent incentive for pollution abatement. By narrowing the gap between the marginal private cost and constrained marginal social cost of the chemical emission externality, the environmental tax system creates efficiency gains.     

Rethinking the optimal level of environmental quality: justifications for strict environmental policy

Traditional environmental theory suggests that the optimal level of a pollution emission occurs when the marginal damage created by the emissions is equal to the marginal cost of reducing the emissions. We argue that the benefits from reducing pollution should be much more broadly defined to include at least three other sources of benefits. First, we develop a game-theoretic model in which firms may under-invest in cost-saving ‘green technologies’. Second, we demonstrate that consideration of future damages and abatement costs leads to a lower current optimal pollution level than that obtained in traditional models. Finally, we show that ecological complexity creates indirect pathways by which greater pollution increases the likelihood of generating irreversible environmental damage. This broader definition of the benefits of pollution abatement yields an optimal level of pollution that may actually be less than the level at which conventionally-measured marginal damages are equal to marginal abatement costs. Thus, environmental policy should be stricter.     

Endogenous market power in an emissions trading scheme with auctioning

This paper contributes to the literature on market power in emissions permits markets, modeling an emissions trading scheme in which polluters differ with respect to their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions. The polluters play a two-stage static complete information game in which their market power arises endogenously from their characteristics. In the first stage all polluters bid in an auction for the distribution of the fixed supply of permits issued by the regulator, and in the second stage they trade these permits in a secondary market. For compliance, they can also engage in abatement activity at a quadratic cost. Under the assumptions of the model, in equilibrium all polluters are successful in the auction. In the secondary market the low-cost emitters are net sellers and the high-cost emitters are net buyers. Moreover, the high-cost emitters are worse off as a result of the strategic behavior. In addition, the secondary market price is unambiguously above the auction clearing price. I find that the aggregate compliance cost when polluters act strategically increases in the heterogeneity of their marginal abatement costs at the business-as-usual emissions, but there exists a threshold of the fixed supply of permits above which strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters. Finally, for a low enough variance of the marginal abatement cost at the business-as-usual emissions, strategic behavior is compliance cost-saving for the polluters, regardless of the level of the available supply of permits.     

Optimal intensity targets for greenhouse gas emissions trading under uncertainty

Uncertainty is an obstacle for commitments under cap and trade schemes for emission permits. We assess how well intensity targets, where each country’s permit allocation is indexed to its future realized GDP, can cope with uncertainties in international greenhouse emissions trading. We present some empirical foundations for intensity targets and derive a simple rule for the optimal degree of indexation to GDP. Using an 18-region simulation model of a cooperative, global cap-and-trade treaty in 2020 under multiple uncertainties and endogenous commitments, we show that optimal intensity targets could reduce the cost of uncertainty and achieve significant increases in global abatement. The optimal degree of indexation to GDP would vary greatly between countries, including super-indexation in some advanced countries, and partial indexation for most developing countries. Standard intensity targets (with one-to-one indexation) would also improve the overall outcome, but to a lesser degree and not in all individual cases. Although target indexation is no magic wand for a future global climate treaty, gains from reduced cost uncertainty and the potential for more stringent environmental commitments could justify the increased complexity and other potential downsides of intensity targets.      

Industry-level emission trading between power producers in the EU

This paper investigates how restrictions for emission trading to the energy-intensive power sector will affect the magnitude and distribution of abatement costs across EU countries vis-à-vis a comprehensive EU emission trading regime. It is found that emission trading between European power sectors allows the harvest of a major part of the efficiency gains provided by full trade as compared to strictly domestic action. However, trade restrictions may create a more unequal distribution of abatement costs across member states than is the case for a comprehensive trade regime. The reason for this is that restricted permit trade enhances secondary terms-of-trade benefits to EU member countries with low marginal abatement costs at the expense of the other EU member states.     

Investment and emission control under technology and pollution externalities

This paper studies incentives to develop advanced pollution abatement technology when technology may spillover across agents and pollution abatement is a public good. We are motivated by a variety of pollution control issues where solutions require the development and implementation of new pollution abatement technologies. We show that at the Nash equilibrium of a simultaneous-move game with R&D investment and emission abatement, whether the free rider effect prevails and under-investment and excess emissions occur depends on the degree of technology spillovers and the effect of R&D on the marginal abatement costs. There are cases in which, contrary to conventional wisdom, Nash equilibrium investments in emissions reductions exceed the first-best case.     

Diffusion and adoption of advanced emission abatement technology induced by permit trading

This paper analyzes firm incentives to diffuse and adopt advanced abatement technology for three different regimes of tradeable emission permits (auctioning, benchmarking, and grandfathering). We particularly consider technical change that decreases marginal abatement costs (MACs) only at high emission levels, whereas it increases them at low firm emissions. We establish that the desirability of the different regimes of allocating permits to firms is critically influenced by how MACs are changed by technological improvements.     

The Cost-Effective Choice of Policy Instruments to Cap Aggregate Emissions with Costly Enforcement

We study the cost-effectiveness of inducing compliance in a program that caps aggregate emissions of a given pollutant from a set of heterogeneous firms based on emissions standards and the relative cost-effectiveness of such a program with respect to an optimally designed program based on tradable discharge permits. Our analysis considers abatement, monitoring and sanctioning costs, as well as perfect and imperfect information on the part of the regulator with regard to the polluters’ abatement costs. Under perfect information we find that (a) the total-cost-effective design of a program based on standards is one in which the standards are firm specific and perfectly enforced, and (b) the total cost of an optimally designed program based on standards is lower than the total cost of an optimally designed transferable emission permits system, except under special conditions. This is true when it is optimum to induce perfect compliance and when it is not. Under imperfect information, nevertheless, it is only by implementing a system of tradable permits and perfectly enforcing it with a constant marginal penalty tied to the price of the permits, that the regulator can surmount the informational problem and at the same time minimize the total cost of the program with certainty.     

Consequences of the IPPC’s BAT Requirements for Emissions and Abatement Costs: A DEA Analysis on Norwegian Data

The Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control (IPPC) directive from the European Union implies that regulatory emission caps shall be set in accordance with each industry’s Best Available Techniques (BAT). The directive, which represents a harmonization of environmental regulations towards a BAT principle, is currently being implemented in all the EU member states and the states associated with the European Economic Area. The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of this implementation on emission reductions and costs, using data from Norwegian manufacturing industries. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to construct a frontier of all efficient installations. The frontier is based on all installations within an industry that use the Best Practice Technique (BPT). We estimate the changes in emissions due to the implementation of IPPC as the difference between an installation’s actual emissions and the emissions that would occur if it operated on the frontier. The method reveals a strong potential for emission reductions. Further, estimates of short-run abatement costs indicate that considerable emission reductions can be achieved with low or no costs, but that the implementation of a strict BAT principle for all installations involves substantial costs. To the extent that the abatement costs of an installation would be excessive, IPPC includes some limited modifications of the strict BAT principle. It seems important that these modifications are fully utilized by authorities to achieve the most cost efficient implementation of the directive.      

Capital Malleability, Emission Leakage and the Cost of Partial Climate Policies: General Equilibrium Analysis of the European Union Emission Trading System

Computable general equilibrium (CGE) models are the premier analytical platform for assessing the economic impacts of climate change mitigation. But these models tend to treat physical capital as “malleable”, capable of reallocation among sectors over the time-period for which equilibrium is solved. Because the extent to which capital adjustment costs might dampen reallocation is not well understood, there is concern that CGE assessments understate the true costs of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction policies. This paper uses a multi-region, multi-sector CGE model to investigate cap-and-trade schemes, such as the European Union Emission Trading System which cover a subset of the economy, elucidating the effects of capital malleability on GHG abatement, the potential for emission leakage from abating to non-abating sectors, and the impacts on welfare. To simplify the complex interactions being simulated within the CGE model, that analysis is complemented with an analytical model. A partial climate policy results in negative internal carbon leakage, with emissions declining not only in capped sectors but also in non-regulated ones. This result is stronger when capital is intersectorally mobile. Interestingly, in partial climate policy settings capital malleability can amplify or attenuate welfare losses depending on the attributes of the economy.     

Over-Allocation or Abatement? A Preliminary Analysis of the EU ETS Based on the 2005–06 Emissions Data

This paper provides an initial analysis of the EU ETS based on the installation-level data for verified emissions and allowance allocations in the first 2 years of the first trading period. These data reveal that CO₂ emissions were about 3% lower than the allocated allowances. The main objective of the paper is to shed light on the extent to which over-allocation and abatement have taken place in 2005 and 2006, when a significant CO₂ price was observed. We propose a measure by which over-allocation can be judged and provide estimates of abatement based on emissions data and indicators of economic activity as well as trends in energy and carbon intensity. Finally, we discuss the insights and implications that emerge from this tentative assessment. The ideas expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent views of the International Energy Agency or its Member Countries.     

Managing Permit Markets to Stabilize Prices

The political economy of environmental policy favors the use of quantity-based instruments over price-based instruments (e.g., tradable permits over green taxes), at least in the United States. With cost uncertainty, however, there are clear efficiency advantages to prices in cases where the marginal damages of emissions are relatively flat, such as with greenhouse gases. The question arises, therefore, of whether one can design flexible quantity policies that mimic the behavior of price policies, namely stable permit prices and abatement costs. We explore a number of “quantity-plus” policies that replicate the behavior of a price policy through rules that adjust the effective permit cap for unexpectedly low or high costs. They do so without necessitating any monetary exchanges between the government and the regulated firms, which can be a significant political barrier to the use of price instruments.     

Methane and Nitrous Oxide Emissions from Agriculture in the EU: A Spatial Assessment of Sources and Abatement Costs

Agriculture significantly contributes to emissions of greenhouse gases in the EU. By using a farm-type, supply-side oriented, linear-programming model of the European agriculture, the baseline levels of methane and nitrous oxide emissions are assessed at the regional level in the EU-15. For a range of CO₂-equivalent prices, we assess the potential abatement, as well as the resulting optimal mix of emission sources in the total abatement. Furthermore, we show that the spatial variability of the abatement achieved at a given carbon price is large, indicating that abatement cost heterogeneity is a fundamental feature in the design of a mitigation policy. The cost savings permitted by market-based instruments relative to uniform standard are shown to be large.