This paper examines future energy and emissions scenarios in China generated by the Integrated Assessment Model WITCH. A Business-as-Usual scenario is compared with five scenarios in which Greenhouse Gases emissions are taxed, at different levels. The elasticity of China’s emissions is...

This paper provides a summary and a critical survey of the methodologies and results of the literature on the economics of adaptation. We divide the literature into two broad areas of research. First, we examine the studies that analyse adaptation from a bottom-up perspective. Second, we...

The first IPCC Assessment Report was released in 1990 and served as the scientific basis of the decisions taken within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed in 1992. In 1997, the Convention adopted the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force on 16 February...

The paper evaluates the impacts on investments and public finance of a transition to a green, low carbon, economy induced by carbon taxation. Four global tax scenarios are examined using the integrated assessment model WITCH. Taxes are levied on all greenhouse gases (GHGs) and lead to global GHG...

This paper proposes a new tool to assess sustainability and make the concept of sustainable development operational. It considers its multi-dimensional structure combining the information deriving from a selection of relevant sustainability indicators belonging to economic, social and...

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...

Financing for adaptation is a core element in the ongoing international negotiations on climate change. This has motivated a number of recent global estimates of adaptation costs. While important from an agenda setting perspective, many of these estimates nevertheless have a number of...

The reduction of GHG emissions is one of the most important policy objectives worldwide. Nonetheless, concrete and effective measures to reduce them are hardly implemented. One of the main reasons for this deadlock is the fear that unilateral actions will reduce a country’s competitiveness,...

This paper uses WITCH, an integrated assessment model with a game-theoretic structure, to explore the prospects for, and the stability of broad coalitions to achieve ambitious climate change mitigation action. Only coalitions including all large emitting regions are found to be technically able...