A 'new Kyoto', called for by the Australian government, may well be based on cap-and-trade, but with significant changes. Under the old Kyoto, broad participation and meaningful commitments were difficult to achieve - in part because of uncertainty about compliance costs and the dichotomy...

In an economy with multiple consumption goods (including environmental amenities) that uniquely maximises the present value of utility with constant or falling augmented green net national product, or zero or negative augmented investment, at any time implies that the economy is unsustainable...

Developing countries will need to be involved if a future international agreement is to be effective in slowing climate change. Under the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period (2008-12), developing countries have not got emissions targets, and the United States have opted out. Whether the...

Climate Policy and Uncertainty: The Roles of Adaptation versus Mitigation

Global Emissions Trading: Prospects and Pitfalls

The next major round of international negotiations on controlling global climate change is to be held later this year in Kyoto. The focus of talks to date has been on policies to reduce worldwide carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels and hold them there. A proposal by the United States would...

We give theoretical, partial equilibrium comparisons of a tax with thresholds, tradable targets ('emissions trading' or ET), and non-tradable targets, as mechanisms to abate well-mixed ('global') emissions from many parties, under independent uncertainties in both future business-as-usual...

In this paper we update our earlier estimates of the cost of the Kyoto Protocol using the G-Cubed model, taking into account the new sink allowances from recent negotiations as well as allowing for multiple gases and new land clearing estimates. Rather than comparing this to the original Kyoto...

This paper discusses the nature of sustainability and the institutional arrangements that can help or hinder the pursuit of a future society that is both ecologically sustainable and humanly desirable. All collective efforts are mediated through institutions, and without institutional change we...

This paper is motivated by the common argument that clean air is a luxury good and has much less or even no value in a less developed country. It applies a hedonic property value analysis, a method commonly used to infer the value of clean air in developed countries, using a combination of data...