International concern about climate change has led to the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997, which contains legally binding emission targets for industrialized countries to be achieved during the commitment period 2008-2012. While proponents of the Protocol celebrate it as a breakthrough in...

To justify substantial emission reductions, recent literature on cost-benefit analysis of climate change suggests discounting environment consumption with an environmental discount rate instead of a consumption discount rate that is usually used in cost-benefit analysis. The present study...

To justify substantial carbon emission reductions, recent literature on cost-benefit analysis of climate change suggests discounting environmental quality at a lower discount rate than the standard consumption discount rate. Recent literature also shows that a theoretical foundation for such a...

To justify substantial carbon emission reductions, recent literature on cost-benefit analysis of climate change suggests discounting environmental quality at a lower discount rate than the standard consumption discount rate. Recent literature also shows that a theoretical foundation for such a...

Methane is a major anthropogenic greenhouse gas, second only to carbon dioxide (CO2) in its impact on climate change. Methane (CH4) has a high global warming potential that is 25 times as large as the one of CO2 on a 100 year time horizon according to the latest IPCC report. Thus, CH4...

It is not immediately clear how to discount distant-future events, like climate change, when the distant-future discount rate itself is uncertain. The so-called Weitzman-Gollier puzzle is the fact that two seemingly symmetric and equally plausible ways of dealing with uncertain future discount...

I compare and contrast five climate scenarios: (1) no climate policy; (2) non-cooperative cost-benefit analysis (NC CBA); (3) NC CBA with international permit trade; (4) NC CBA with joint and several liability for climate change damages; and (5) NC CBA with liability proportional to a country's...

This paper examines the role of electricity production from biomass with and without carbon capture and storage in sustaining low CO2 emission pathways to 2100. It quantifies the effect of the availability of biomass resources and technologies within a general equilibrium framework. Biomass-fed...

Das vorliegende Diskussionspapier leistet einen Beitrag zur Bewertung der Option Biomethan zur Einspeisung ins Erdgasnetz, indem die Treibhausgasbilanz der Prozesskette sowie die Umwelteffekte durch den Anbau der Substrate detailliert untersucht werden. Die Ergebnisse werden durch laufende...