Among the co-operative mechanisms established under the Kyoto Protocol, the Clean Development Mechanism is the only one, which has the potential to assist developing countries in achieving sustainable development by promoting environmentally friendly investment from industrialized country...

The paper bases itself on recent theoretical writings in growth economics that emphasize the effects of both own R&D efforts and of interregional technology spillovers on regions´ productivity. We propose robust estimation techniques to evaluate the R&D spillovers across West German functional...

Research efforts towards new energy sources and towards the efficiency of energy use will be vital to reducing CO2 abatement costs in the long term. Can such efforts be induced by price instruments? Economists often cite induced technological change as a possible consequence of environmental...

Convergence in per capita income turns on whether technological knowledge spillovers are global or local. Global spillovers favor convergence, while a geographically limited scope of knowledge diffusion can lead to regional clusters of countries with persistently different levels of income per...

A whole bundle of so-called "flexible mechanisms" has been foreseen by the Kyoto Protocol in order to help industrial countries to fulfill their agreed reduction targets in the most cost-effective way. Emission permits will act as the backbone of all market-orientated mechanisms. Therefore,...

As GHG emissions did not decline as anticipated early of the 1990ties Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) recently gained more and more attention as a climate change mitigation option. However, CO2 suppressed in geological reservoirs is likely to lead to future releases of the CO2 stored. This...

After four years of intense negotiations that tethered on the brink of failure, the design of the international climate policy regime that is formed by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol and the Marrakesh Accords is now sufficiently clear to be implemented. Apart...

This paper aims to examine the potential of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to address energy- related issues during the rural transition process in China, using a case study of quickly urbanizing and industrializing Yinzhou district in coastal Zhejiang province. Yinzhou's per capita GDP...

Carbon sequestration projects in the context of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) suffer from the stigma of permanence risk. The risk that carbon reduced or sequestered in forestry projects is release further down the road is in fact undeniable, whoever bears the onus. The merit of the...

Emission trading has become recently more and more import in environmental regulation. In the context of controlling greenhouse gas emissions, the directive on a Europewide trading scheme for large immobile sources may be perceived as one of the most important milestones in recent years. Prior...