The Ramsey rule for the consumption rate of discount assumes a transfer of money of a (representative) agent at one point in time to the same agent at another point in time. Climate policy (implicitly) transfers money not just over time but also between agents. I propose three alternative...

Understanding the relationship between international trade and CO2 emissions is crucial for designing appropriate measures to address climate change. This article focuses on CO2 emissions as one of the trade flow determinants of the EU countries, along with other factors including remoteness,...

The rationale of voluntary corporate initiatives is often explained with anticipation of future regulation. We test this hypothesis for the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and the Climate Leaders (CL), two popular voluntary US environmental programs to curb carbon emission that were operating...

The social cost of carbon is an estimate of the benefit of reducing CO2 emissions by one ton today. As such it is a key input into cost-benefit analysis of climate policy and regulation. We provide a set of new estimates of the social cost of carbon from the integrated assessment model FUND 3.5...

We estimate the growth rate of the social cost of carbon. This is an indication of the optimal rate of acceleration of greenhouse gas emission reduction policy over time. We find that the social cost of carbon increases by 1.3% to 3.9% per year, with a central estimate of 2.2%. Previous studies...

This paper analyses the policy relevance of the dominant uncertainties in our current scientific understanding of the terrestrial climate system, and provides further evidence for the need to radically transform - this century - our global infrastructure of energy supply, given the global...

Sechs Jahre nach der Verabschiedung des Kyoto-Protokolls im Dezember 1997 sind die meisten Länder der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft noch weit von den damals verabredeten Klimaschutzzielen entfernt. Im Jahre 2001 lagen die Treibhausgas-Emissionen in den OECD-Ländern, die im...

Die globale Klimapolitik befindet sich in einer Sackgasse. Während die Klimaforscher drastische Maßnahmen fordern, um die Emissionen von Klimagasen zu begrenzen, nimmt der Ausstoß dieser Gase zu. Wird die Entwicklung der Treibhausgasemissionen allein am Kohlendioxid gemessen, muss weltweit...

The purpose of the present paper is to describe the role of uncertainty and technical change in an environmental context. Which impact does ecological uncertainty have on physical and R&D investments' decisions? How are pollution trajectories modified when uncertainty is taken into account? To...

The 1998 Kyoto protocol signalled a new earnestness of international intent toward addressing the perceived risk of climate change. Kyoto demands that developed nations turn their economies so as to hit differentiated, sub-1990 level carbon emission targets within the next decade or so. But when...