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...

China has realized that for its own sake and from the international community’s perspective, it cannot afford to continue along the conventional path of encouraging economic growth at the expense of the environment. Accordingly, the country has placed ecological goals at the same level of...

Australia’s carbon price has been in operation for two years. The electricity sector accounts for the majority of emissions covered under the scheme. This paper examines the impact of the carbon price on the electricity sector between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2014, focusing on the National...

The aim of this paper is to enunciate a new way to estimate levelized cost of electric energy (LCOE), considering emission of greenhouse gases cost, by taking the theoretical cost of avoiding pollution as the emission cost. In this way, it would be comparable LCOE from different sources of...

Large but temporary price increases are sometimes deployed on days when the demand for electricity is extremely high due to exceptionally warm or cold weather. But what happens when the extreme price changes are permanent? Between January 2013 and April 2016, natural gas and electricity prices...

The COVID-19 crisis comes at a complex moment for European climate policy as it pivots from a 40% 2030 emissions reduction target to a European Green Deal that is in better alignment with long-term Paris Agreement goals. Here, the implications of the dramatic fall in economic output associated...

This paper proposes a novel methodology to estimate the demand and elasticity of electricity, heating, and private transport fuels by aligning the microdata of the Italian Household Budget Survey with several external sources. These estimates are used to evaluate the effects of a set of one-off...

Various stakeholders are increasingly encouraging companies from the real economy to adopt measures facilitating their transition towards carbon neutrality. In this context, companies are expected to implement forward-looking strategies and climate-related reporting practices using scenario...

The EU-wide Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), established in 2005, is a key pillar of Europe¿s strategy to attain compliance with the Kyoto Protocol. Under this scheme, CO2 allowances have thus far been allocated largely free of charge. This paper demonstrates that such cost-free allocation,...