China started seven carbon cap-and-trade pilot programs in order to inform the development of a future national cap-and-trade market. This paper assesses the design of three of the longer-running cap-and-trade pilot programs in Guangdong, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Based on extensive stakeholder...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $90 billion in strategic clean energy investments intended to promote job creation and promote deployment of low-carbon technologies. In terms of spending, the clean energy package has been described as the nation’s “biggest...

In 2005, the European Union introduced the largest and most ambitious emissions trading program in the world to meet its Kyoto commitments for the containment of global climate change. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) has some distinctive features that differentiate it from the more...

Momentum may be building for federal climate change policy in the United States. Assuming this leads to mandatory greenhouse gas regulations, the door will be open for the United States to constructively re-engage other countries concerning an international climate regime. Such a regime will...

This paper argues that while a long-term solution to climate change may require the global market-based solution envisioned in the Kyoto Protocol, a more flexible near-term approach is necessary. First, a broad range of domestic policies need to be embraced and encouraged by an international...

We use recent developments in the empirics of comparative case studies to analyze the effect of binding emission targets under the Kyoto Protocol on the development of CO2 emissions of seven major Annex B countries. In particular, we investigate whether committing to a specific greenhouse gas...

We empirically analyze the formation of international environmental agreements within a political economy framework. We develop a theoretical model of state dependent net benefits of ratification predicting (i) strategic behavior with respect to the timing of ratification and (ii) that...

Mitigation and adaptation are the most important strategies in combating global climate change. It is expected that in a post Kyoto world industrialized countries have to engage in greenhouse gas abatement, and to support developing countries in adapting to climate change. Within the framework...

The prevailing literature discusses intergenerational trade-offs predominantly in infinitely-lived agent models despite the finite lifetime of individuals. We discuss these trade-offs in a continuous time OLG framework and relate the results to the infinitely-lived agent setting. We identify...

There is an ongoing discussion especially among political scientists and economists whether and how climate variability affects civil conflicts and wars in developing countries. Given the predicted climatic changes, several studies argue that increasing temperatures or decreasing precipitation...