We analyze how a country pursuing a unilateral climate policy may contribute to a reduction in global CO2 emissions in a cost-effective way. To do so its system of energy taxes and subsidies must account for leakage of emissions from the domestic to the foreign economy. We focus on leakage...

For any emission trading system (ETS) with quantity-based endogenous supply of allowances, there exists a negative demand shock, e.g. induced by abatement policy, that increases aggregate supply and thus cumulative emissions. We prove this green paradox for a general model and then apply it to...

We analyse the optimal design of unilateral climate policy in an open economy where the government is committed to a target for reduction of domestic CO2 emissions but where it is also concerned about carbon leakage. We highlight the importance of distinguishing between leakage at the extensive...

We derive the optimal unilateral policy in a general equilibrium model of trade and climate change where one region of the world imposes a climate policy and the rest of the world does not. A climate policy in one region shifts activities—extraction, production, and consumption—in the other...

A sufficiently rapidly rising carbon tax may increase near-term emissions compared with the case of no carbon tax. Even so, such a carbon tax path may reduce total costs related to climate change, since the tax may reduce total carbon extraction. A government cannot commit to a specific carbon...

The increase of fuel extraction costs as well as of temperature will make it likely that in the medium-term future technological or political measures against global warming may be implemented. In assessments of a current climate policy the possibility of medium-term future developments like...

Internalizing the global negative externality of carbon emissions requires flattening the extraction path of world fossil energy resources (= world carbon emissions). We consider governments having sign-unconstrained emission taxes at their disposal and seeking to prevent world emissions from...

The optimal transition to a low-carbon economy must account for adjustment costs in switching from dirty to clean capital, technological progress, and economic and climatic shocks. We study the low-carbon transition using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with emissions abatement...

Policies of lowering carbon demand may aggravate rather than alleviate climate change (green paradox). In a two-period three-country general equilibrium model with finite endowment of fossil fuel one country enforces an emissions cap in the first or second period. When that cap is tightened the...

This paper addresses two basic issues related to technological innovation and climate stabilisation objectives: i) Can innovation policies be effective in stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations? ii) To what extent can innovation policies complement carbon pricing (taxes or permit trading) and...