We analyse the long-term efficiency of the emissions target and of the provisions to reduce carbon leakage in the Australian Government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, as proposed in March 2009, and the nature and likely cause of changes to these features in the previous year. The target...

We review the historical literature on the economics of climate change with a focus on the evolution of the literature from some of the early classic papers to the latest contributions. We divide the paper into three main sections: trends in greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation, and adaptation.

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...

Effective climate policy requires global emissions of greenhouse gases to be cut substantially, which can be achieved by energy supply technologies with lower emissions, greater energy use efficiency, and substitution in demand. For policy to be efficient requires fairly uniform, fairly...

Mobilizing climate finance for developing countries is crucial for achieving a fair and effective global climate regime. To date developed countries retain wide discretion over their national contributions. We explore how different degrees of international coordination may influence the fairness...

World economic activity is a cause of climate change and climate change has an impact on economic activity. Adaptation to climate change can occur locally, but action to reduce the extent of climate change requires global cooperation or at least coordination. Covering all aspects of the problem,...

In this paper we investigate the introduction of an export tax on steam coal levied by an individual country (Australia), or a group of major exporting countries. The policy motivation would be twofold: generating tax revenues against the background of improved terms-of-trade, while CO2...

The European Union grants preferential market access for sugar to a group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Sugar exported under these quotas receives between two and three times the world price. These trade preferences are intended as a form of aid, but they tend to stifle...

Effective climate policy requires global emissions of greenhouse gases to be cut substantially, which can be achieved by energy supply technologies with lower emissions, greater energy use efficiency and substitution in demand. For policy to be efficient requires at least fairly uniform, fairly...

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...