Greenhouse gas emission benchmarks are widely implemented as a policy tool, as more countries move to implement carbon pricing mechanisms for industrial emissions. In particular, benchmarks are used to determine the level of free allowance allocation in emission trading schemes, which are...

Greenhouse gas emission benchmarks are widely implemented as a policy tool, as more countries move to implement carbon pricing mechanisms for industrial emissions. In particular, benchmarks are used to determine the level of free allowance allocation in emission trading schemes, which are...

The US refining industry is a leading producer of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions. As a result of the Clean Air Act, it has been subject to a host of environmental regulations that prescribe the production processes firms can employ and limits their emissions based on the permits they...

In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis of the effects of residential electricity prices on greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions using a panel dataset that includes annual data on the electricity market and the amount of GHG emitted by all sectors in the 48 U.S. states from 1990 to 2017. We...

This paper provides a first estimate of the potential greenhouse gas mitigation from the intra-sector reallocation of economic activity by the European manufacturing industry away from carbon-inefficient - or "brown zombie" - firms to more carbon-efficient firms. Using techniques from the...

Scientific expertise suggests that mitigating extreme world-wide climate change damages requires avoiding increases in the world mean temperature exceeding 2° Celsius. To achieve the two degree target, the cumulated global emissions must not exceed some limit, the so-called global carbon...

China had been singled out by Western politicians and media for dragging its feet on international climate negotiations at Copenhagen, the accusations previously always targeted on the U.S. To put such a criticism into perspective, this paper provides some reflections on China's stance and...

As an important step towards building a "harmonious society" through "scientific development", China has incorporated for the first time in its five-year economic plan an energy input indicator as a constraint. While it achieved a quadrupling of its GDP while cutting its energy intensity by...

Just prior to the Copenhagen climate summit, China pledged to cut its carbon intensity by 40-45% by 2020 relative to its 2005 levels to help to reach an international climate change agreement at Copenhagen or beyond. This raises the issue of whether such a pledge is ambitious or just represents...

In the absence of significant greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation, many analysts project that atmospheric concentrations of species identified for control in the Kyoto protocol could exceed 1000 ppm (carbon-dioxide-equivalent) by 2100 from the current levels of about 435 ppm. This could lead to...