Articles

Climate Policy and World Sustainability

Carlo Carraro, Elisa Lanzi and Ramiro Parrado

Will the ambitious climate targets proposed at the G8 meeting in l’Aquila and discussed at COP15 in Copenhagen make the world more sustainable? In order to find an effective answer to this question, we should consider that a global climate policy may eventually lead to strong reductions of greenhouse gases, but it may also entail large costs and lower investments in education, wealth, or research and development. While the discussion on climate policy costs focus on GDP losses or monetary measures, authors introduce a new element in the discussion by combining economic, social, and environmental indicators onto a unique measure of sustainability, the FEEM Sustainability Index (FEEMSI), an innovative index which allows projecting sustainability indicators in the future. FEEMSI is able to summarize current and future sustainability performances for 40 countries up to the year 2020, and the effect of a stringent climate policy on sustainability is not straightforward

published March 22nd, 2010
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A roadmap for post-Copenhagen years

Stephane Hallegatte

The Cop 15 is a bitter disappointment for European countries. While environment is one of the domains in which EU integration is deepest, European countries failed to build and support a common position that would have weighed on the outcome of the conference.
But the EU could try to make the Copenhagen Accord more ambitious and credible. How? Forgetting Kyoto – Stéphane Hallegatte suggests – recognizing that it is an important progress to have included the United States and China in a unique agreement and answering to four questions

published February 3rd, 2010
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Environment and Finance: Lessons to be Learnt

Domenico Siniscalco

Energy, markets and human behaviour: what have they got in common? According to economists such are Thomas Friedman, George Akerlof and Robert Shiller, there is something that the financial crisis and the environmental crisis have in common: they both are global crisis and they both can be interpreted using the frame of human behaviour. In other words, we can consider the excess of consumption of the western world and its bulimia of resources and finance among the causes of both the financial and environmental crisis. Domenico Siniscalco, Vice-President at Morgan Stanley, says in his speech at 2009 International Energy Workhop in Venice

published January 19th, 2010
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Two good news from Copenhagen?

Carlo Carraro and Emanuele Massetti

The “climate deadlock” prevented to sign a real substitute for the Kyoto Protocol. But two important novelties nonetheless emerged from Copenhagen. First, an informal, although politically relevant, declaration of national emissions reduction targets for 2020. Secondly, the definition of the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund.
How much good are these news? Announced mitigation targets are far from being adequate to control climate change, however there are chances to put the world on the right trajectory to reduce global warming significantly. The analysis of two economists explains why

published January 7th, 2010
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Looking ahead from Copenhagen: how challenging is the Chinese carbon intensity target?

Carlo Carraro and Massimo Tavoni

At COP 15 in Copenhagen, China has put forward a proposal for cutting its carbon intensity by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2020. The scheme has generated a variety of responses, which is unsurprising given the difficulty of assessing the intensity target. In particular, it gave the impression that China and the US may take the lead in the fight against climate change. By comparing figures from history and recent projections, this note is an attempt to shed some light on how ambitious is the Chinese climate proposal and, therefore, on China’s actual cooperative effort to control climate change

published December 28th, 2009
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Breaking the Climate Stalemate?

Geoffrey Blanford, Valentina Bosetti, Carlo Carraro, Richard Richels, Thomas Rutherford and Massimo Tavoni

On the eve of the UN’s highly-anticipated Copenhagen meeting the political debate is facing an impasse and the physical reality is sending a clear message: time is running out. Reductions in developing countries must begin very soon to keep acceptable climate targets on the table, but who will pay for the climate protection bill?
A team of economists propose one way forward: a commitment now on behalf of China and other key developing countries to accept pre-specified future emission reduction targets could effectively address concerns

published December 6th, 2009
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The Road from Bali to Copenhagen. It’s Not Over Until It’s Over

Sara Venturini

It seems to be the most-anticipated international conference on climate change of the last decades and it is finally taking place after a long countdown.
The fifteenth Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is bringing together officials and ministers from 192 countries who, under the eyes of some 5.000 representatives of the world media, are asked to achieve what Kyoto failed to and design an ambitious and effective international climate change deal to follow on 2012

published December 6th, 2009
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If No Treaty in Copenhagen, How About a Climate Bail Out by the US?

Henry Tulkens

A potential global agreement on climate change will be limited to a political agreement, instead of being the long expected treaty that would extend the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012 and further enhance the Climate convention. Couldn’t President Obama offer a tangible political gesture to the world community and thereby restore leadership and credibility for the US in the climate negotiations?
In this article, economist Henry Tulkens suggest that the Obama administration negotiates a deal in Copenhagen by which the US would buy a quantity of emission units corresponding to all emissions exceeding its Kyoto target over the commitment period 2008-2012, some of the money being allocated to adaptation funding in developing countries.

published December 5th, 2009
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A Focus on Individuals Can Guide Nations Towards a Low Carbon World

Shoibal Chakravarty, Robert Socolow and Massimo Tavoni

A major factor in the reluctance of countries to make commitments to a low-carbon economy is fear that change will be costly and that others will hold back. Moving attention from national per capita values of CO2 emissions to the emissions of individuals provides an important tool for dealing with the decarbonization transition. Individual CO2 emissions are very unequally distributed not only across countries but also within countries, researchers at the Princeton Environmental Institute say. The allocation problem takes on important new dimensions when the focus shifts in this way from “high emitting” nations to “high emitting” individuals

published November 13th, 2009
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Implementing Climate and Development Policy in India

Sandrine Mathy and Céline Guivarch

Some climate policies constitutes a win-win solution for climate and development. Authors at Cired analyze the potential for implementing synergies between climate and development looking at the case of India, where power sector is characterized by many institutional and market failures, capacity shortage and structural underinvestment.
A carbon price only scenario will induce prohibitive macroeconomic costs, authors say, but enlarge the spectrum of climate policies and synergies between climate policies and development policies should be used for mitigation cost assessment

published November 13th, 2009
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