Calling upon both positive and normative economics, we attempt to characterise the issues at stake in the current international negotiations on climatic change. We begin (Section 2) by reviewing the main features of the Protocol. Then (Section 3), we identify by means of an elementary economic...

The objective of this paper is to assess the likely allocation effects of the current climate protection strategy as it is laid out in the National Allocation Plans (NAPs) for the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The multi-regional, multi-sectoral CGEmodel DART is used to simulate the...

In this paper we test empirically with the Nordhaus and Yang (1996) RICE model the core property of the transfer scheme advocated by Germain, Toint and Tulkens (1997). This scheme is designed to sustain full co-operation in a voluntary international environmental agreement by making all...

The paper proves the existence and uniqueness of a noncooperative steady state in the context of a model of climate change. It also explores the possibility of cooperation and attainment of an optimal steady state. It is shown that the problem is similar to that in the static model (Chander and...

In this paper we introduce the CLIMNEG World Simulation (CWS) model for simulating cooperative game theoretic aspects of global climate negotiations. The model is derived from the seminal RICE model by Nordhaus and Yang (1996). We first state the necessary conditions that determine optimal...

This paper compares the level of uncertainty widely reported in climate change scientific publications with the level of uncertainty of the costs estimates of implementing the Kyoto Protocol in the United States. It argues that these two categories of uncertainties were used and ignored,...

Marginal abatement cost curves (MACCs) are one of the favorite instruments to analyze the impacts of the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and emissions trading. As shown in this paper one important factor that influences MACCs are energy prices. This leads to the question of how to define...

The upcoming European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is one of the more controversial climate policy instruments. Predictions about its likely impact and its performance can at present only be made to a certain degree. As long as the National Allocations Plans are not finally settled the overall...