The objective of this paper is to find out whether differences between the domestic permit allocation procedures of the Member States of the European Union (EU) will distort competition and lead to state aid in a European carbon trading market. This paper shows that it depends whether one takes...

Federal action addressing climate change is likely to emerge either through new legislation or via the U.S. EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act. The prospect of federal action raises important questions regarding the interconnections between federal efforts and state-level climate policy...

China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a...

With the liberalisation of the European electricity market, new instruments are searched for in order to co-ordinate climate change initiatives with competition. This paper analyses the potential of a system of green electricity certificates to regulate the introduction of renewable energy...

Technological development is likely to play an important role in curbing growth in greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore important to incorporate factors influencing technological change in climate policy analyses. This paper studies climate policy when there are technology spillovers...

The European Commission (2001a) has recently presented a directive proposal to the Parliament and the Council in order to implement a tradable permits scheme. However, as stressed by the positive political economy, due to the influence of various interest groups, very few environmental policies...

We develop and discuss the three pathways to European Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading: a top-down scheme based on the Kyoto Protocol of the UNFCCC, a bottom-up scheme linking national trading systems of EU Member States, and an EU-wide regional scheme based on the founding principles of the...

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, economies in transition are eligible for both emissions trading (Article 17) and joint implementation (Article 6). Guiding rules for implementing these mechanisms were decided through the Marrakech Accords in November 2001. These countries may benefit substantially...

There are no other two countries in the world that trade as much between themselves as do Canada and the U.S.. It should thus come as no surprise that the U.S. deviation from international obligations makes Canadian industries' competitiveness (trade) concerns become even more rigorous. Against...

The Kyoto Protocol incorporates emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism to help Annex I countries to meet their Kyoto targets at a lower overall cost. This paper aims to estimate the size of the potential market for all three flexibility mechanisms under the...