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on Environmental Economics |
| By: | Renaud Crassous (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, ENGREF - Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts - http://www.engref.fr/ - Ministere de l'Agriculture); Jean-Charles Hourcade (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées); Olivier Sassi (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, ENPC - Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées - http://www.enpc.fr - Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) |
| Abstract: | This paper envisages endogenous technical change as resulting from the interplay between the economic growth engine, consumption, technology and localization patterns. We perform numerical simulations with the recursive dynamic general equilibrium model IMACLIM-R to study how modeling induced technical change affects costs of CO2 stabilization. IMACLIM-R incorporates innovative specifications about final consumption of transportation and energy to represent critical stylized facts such as rebound effects and demand induction by infrastructures and equipments. Doing so brings to light how induced technical change may not only lower stabilization costs thanks to pure technological progress, but also triggers induction of final demand - effects critical to both the level of the carbon tax and the costs of policy given a specific stabilization target. Finally, we study the sensitivity of total stabilization costs to various parameters including both technical assumptions as accelerated turnover of equipments and non-energy choices as alternative infrastructure policies. |
| Keywords: | induced technical change; structural change; climate policy; carbon tax;transportation; infrastructures |
| Date: | 2006–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00009335_v1&r=env |
| By: | Philippe Quirion (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées); Damien Demailly (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) |
| Abstract: | We present a spatial international trade model, GEO, which computes transportation costs by<br />not treating markets as dimensionless points and explicitly represents capacity shortages and<br />investment decisions in new production capacities. We link it to CEMSIM, a partial<br />equilibrium model of the world cement industry developed by the IPTS. We assume that the<br />Kyoto Protocol Annex B countries (except the USA and Australia), create a CO2 tax at 15<br />euros per tonne. This policy entails significant emissions reductions (around 20%) in these<br />countries. A significant leakage occurs, with an emissions increase in the rest of the world of<br />around 20% of the emissions reduction in Annex B-USA&Australia. We thus run two<br />scenarios combining a CO2 tax with border-tax adjustments (BTA). With the more ambitious<br />BTA tested, not only is there no leakage, but emissions in the rest of the world decrease<br />slightly. However, compared to business-as-usual, non-Annex B price-competitiveness and<br />production decrease a little and these countries loose some market shares, so they could<br />attack this system as distorting competition in favour of Annex B countries. A less ambitious<br />BTA is thus tested, which cannot be criticised on this ground and prevents almost all leakage.<br />The only drawback of both BTA policies is that the cement price in Annex BUSA&<br />Australia increases a little more than without BTA, further impacting the cement<br />consumers in these countries. |
| Keywords: | Cement; leakag;, spillover; climate change mitigation;Kyoto Protocol; border-tax adjustment;<br />international trade; transportation cost |
| Date: | 2006–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00009337_v1&r=env |
| By: | Stephane Hallegate (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, ENPC - Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées - Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées); Jean-Charles Hourcade (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - CNRS : UMR8568 - Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales;Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts;Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées) |
| Abstract: | Extreme events are one of the main channels through which climate and socio-<br />economic systems interact and it is likely that climate change will modify their<br />probability distributions. The long-term growth models used in climate change as-<br />sessments, however, cannot capture the eects of such short-term shocks. To inves-<br />tigate this issue, a non-equilibrium dynamic model (NEDyM) is used to assess the<br />macroeconomic consequences of extreme events. In the model, dynamic processes<br />multiply the extreme event direct costs by a factor 20. Half of this increase comes<br />from short-term processes, that long-term growth models cannot capture. The model<br />exhibits also a bifurcation in GDP losses: for a given distribution of extremes, there<br />is a value of the ability to fund reconstruction below which GDP losses increases<br />dramatically. This bifurcation may partly explain why some poor countries that<br />experience repeated natural disasters cannot develop. It also shows that changes<br />in the distribution of extremes may entail signicant GDP losses and that climate<br />change may force a specic adaptation of the economic organization. These results<br />show that averaging short-term processes like extreme events over the yearly time<br />step of a long-term growth model can lead to inaccurately low assessments of the<br />climate change damages. |
| Keywords: | Dynamics; Extreme events; Economic impacts; Climate Change |
| Date: | 2006–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00009339_v1&r=env |
| By: | Vincent Gitz (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - [CNRS : UMR8568] - [] - [Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales][Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts][Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées], CIRAD - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - http://www.cirad.fr - [CIRAD] - [] - []); Jean-Charles Hourcade (CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - http://www.centre-cired.fr - [CNRS : UMR8568] - [] - [Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales][Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts][Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées]); Philippe Ciais (LSCE - Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l'environnement - http://www.lsce.cnrs-gif.fr - [CNRS : UMR1572][CEA] - [] - []) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the timing of the use of biological carbon sequestration and its capacity to alleviate the carbon constraint on the energy sector. We constructed a stochastic optimal control model balancing the costs of fossil emission abatement, the opportunity costs of lands allocated to afforestation, and the costs of uncertain climate damages. We show that a minor part of the sequestration potential should start immediately as a ‘brake', slowing down both the rate of growth of concentrations and the rate of abatement in the energy sector, thus increasing the option value of the emission trajectories. But, most of the potential is put in reserve to be used as a ``safety valve'' after the resolution of uncertainty, if a higher and faster decarbonization is required : sequestration cuts off the peaks of costs of fossil abatement and postpones the pivoting of the energy system by up to two decades. |
| Keywords: | biological carbon sequestration; carbon cycle, climate damages; optimal stochastic control; energy sector |
| Date: | 2006–02–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:papers:halshs-00009338_v1&r=env |
| By: | Tim J. Foxon (4CMR – Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.); Peter J. Pearson (Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK.) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses recent, current and potential future relations between policy processes and substantive outcomes in UK low carbon innovation policy. It examines the development of policy processes relating to the adoption and implementation of the Renewables Obligation and how these may affect the current and likely future success of the Obligation in promoting low carbon innovation. It looks at the new policy and institutional processes put in place in the 2003 Energy White Paper and argues that these are unlikely to provide the strategic long-term framework needed to realize the ambitious goals for UK energy policy set out in the White Paper. Finally, it outlines some suggestions for further development of policy processes to facilitate improved delivery of these goals, based on guiding principles for sustainable innovation policy processes, developed by the authors and colleagues. |
| Keywords: | Low carbon innovation policy, Renewables Obligation, guiding principles, sustainable innovation policy processes. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:200616&r=env |
| By: | María Teresa Ruiz-Tagle (Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge.) |
| Abstract: | In Chile, like in other developing countries, many plants avoid complying with environmental regulations because monitoring and enforcement are infrequent. On the other hand, some plants overcomply because their abatement decisions are strongly affected by factors other than formal regulation. This seems counterintuitive, because firms do not have incentives to comply with environmental regulation when there is a lack of enforcement. However, firms’ managers sometimes respond to other sorts of incentives. When firms face a lack of formal regulation, they may comply because they see incentives other than conventional enforcement. These can take the form of community pressure and sanctions from market agents in the form of informal regulation. Indeed, it seems that conventional policy discussion has been too narrow, focusing only on the firm-state interaction as the single determinant of environmental performance. Therefore, the central objective of this paper is to analyse the impact of formal and informal regulation on the level of compliance of firms with environmental regulation. Informal regulation includes two new agents, the community (local or neighbouring community, community groups or NGOs) and the market (market agents such as consumers and investors), which also participate in the process of environmental regulation through private enforcement. This paper also analyses the impact of plants’ and firms’ characteristics on their environmental performance. This research uses new evidence from a survey carried out in 700 Chilean manufacturing plants. The multivariate results suggest that in Chile there is a scope for strategies that complements conventional policy regulations. |
| Keywords: | Environmental compliance, enforcement, formal regulation, informal regulation, Chile |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lnd:wpaper:200617&r=env |
| By: | Don Fullerton; Seung-Rae Kim |
| Abstract: | Recent studies consider public R&D spending that affects abatement knowledge and endogenous growth, distortionary taxes that affect physical and human capital formation, pollution taxes that affect environmental degradation, and regeneration that restores natural capital. Our model combines all of those elements. We show how the combination affects results from each prior model, focusing on two parameters that represent the need for distorting taxes, and the productivity of abatement knowledge relative to pollution. First, either of these two extensions can reverse the prior finding that pollution tax revenue is more than enough to pay for public abatement R&D. Second, tax distortions and externalities substantially alter prior findings that the ratio of public to private capital is based only on output elasticities. Third, our dynamic model affects prior static findings about how other public spending "crowds out" provision of the environmental public good. Fourth, we show whether a greater need for public spending leads to greater increases in the distorting tax or pollution tax. Fifth, while prior research is optimistic that environmental regulation can boost economic growth, we show how it may increase or decrease the growth rate --even if it raises welfare. |
| JEL: | O41 Q20 H41 H23 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12070&r=env |
| By: | Maxime Kennett; Ronald Steenblik |
| Abstract: | En 2003, le Groupe de travail conjoint sur les échanges et l’environnement (GTCEE) de l’OCDE a demandé que sept études nationales soient consacrées aux avantages tirés de la libéralisation des échanges de biens et services environnementaux par des pays récemment admis à l’OCDE, en qualité de Membres à part entière ou d’observateurs. Dans le même temps, des travaux comparables ont été entrepris par la CNUCED (six études) et le PNUD (quatre études). Le présent document passe en revue les 17 études réalisées sous l’égide des trois organisations internationales dans les cas suivants : Brésil, Chili, Chine, Corée, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Israël, Kenya, Mexique, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, République dominicaine, République tchèque, Thaïlande et Vietnam. |
| Keywords: | pays en développement, biens environnementaux, services environnementaux, échanges |
| JEL: | F14 F18 Q56 |
| Date: | 2005 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaaa:2005/3-fr&r=env |
| By: | Roger Guesnerie |
| Abstract: | This text is based on the English translation of extracts from a report to an advisory economic group to the French Prime Minister (Conseil d'Analyse Economique). This report was presented on July 2002 and published in 2003, (Guesnerie(2003). These extracts have been chosen and reorganised to provide an assessment of the future of the Kyoto protocol, as emphasized in the title. The sections successively treat: the present flaws of the Kyoto protocol, the improvement in design that can be thought of, the issues underlying the durability of Kyoto-like arrangements. The main lessons of the analysis are stressed again in conclusion. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pse:psecon:2006-08&r=env |
| By: | Jennifer Franz; Felix Fitzroy |
| Keywords: | Child mortality, environmental health, Central Asian Republics, multivariate analysis. |
| JEL: | Q18 Q28 Q32 Q56 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:san:wpecon:0518&r=env |
| By: | Toru Iwami (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate what the East Asian data tell us about the "pollution haven hypothesis." In the region, pollution goods are not traded so much directly, and their production is not clearly correlated with inward FDI and openness of the country in question. Although production of pollution goods is indirectly related to manufacturing exports as materials and intermediate goods, domestic consumption exerts larger impact on the production than exports. These facts imply that pollution industries are not so much influenced by the "globalization," suggesting indirectly also that a gap in environmental regulations do not lead to an increased scale of foreign trade and FDI. To the question of how FDI inflows and openness contribute to energy efficiency and labor productivity, we find a positive effect of FDI on the labor productivity in low and middle-income countries, although its effect on energy efficiency is rather vague. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tky:fseres:2006cf394&r=env |
| By: | Nava Haruvy |
| Abstract: | We will analyze land use and water management issues in Israel by focusing on wastewater irrigation. Irrigation with treated effluents has become an important water source in Israel due to scarcity of natural water resources. Treated wastewater reuse serves as source of water and nutrients and assists with wastewater discard. Wastewater also carries pollutants including micro and macro organic and inorganic matter and its treatment and use should adapt to sustainability criteria. Wastewater treatment processes can decrease pollutants levels, while salinity is not influenced unless combining relatively expensive desalination processes. Advantages of using wastewater in irrigation include: supporting agricultural production, highly reliable supply, low cost water source, solution for effluent disposal and saving of chemical fertilizers. Disadvantages include quality problems as related to human health, damage to crops, contamination of groundwater, problems related to irrigation system, increased water requirement and need for continuous follow up and control. The higher is the treatment level, the higher are the treatment costs but the environmental potential hazards are lower. Regarding sustainable use we will assess advantages and disadvantages of treating and irrigating with treated effluents. We will focus on the economic and environmental analysis of sustainable reuse of wastewater in agriculture regarding its impact on groundwater, soil and society. |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa05p376&r=env |