First steps toward a broad climate agreement, such as the Kyoto Protocol, have focused on less than global geographic coverage. We consider instead a policy that is less comprehensive in term of greenhouse gases (GHGs), including only the non-CO2 GHGs, but is geographically comprehensive....

Observations of historical energy consumption, energy prices, and income growth in industrial economies exhibit a trend in improving energy efficiency even when prices are constant or falling. Two alternative explanations of this phenomenon are: a productivity change that uses less energy and a...

In 2003 Japan proposed a Climate Change Tax to reduce its CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> emissions to the level required by the Kyoto Protocol. If implemented, the tax would be levied on fossil fuel use and the revenue distributed to encourage the purchase of energy efficient equipment. Analysis using the MIT Emissions...</subscript>

The emergence of U.S. shale gas resources to economic viability affects the nation's energy outlook and the expected role of natural gas in climate policy. Even in the face of the current shale gas boom, however, questions are raised about both the economics of this industry and the wisdom of...

We estimate the economic impacts on US airlines that may arise from the inclusion of aviation in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme from 2012 to 2020. We find that the Scheme would only have a small impact on US airlines and emissions, and that aviation operations would continue to...

We investigate the impact of climate policies on Canada’s oil sands industry, the largest of its kind in the world. Deriving petroleum products such as gasoline and diesel from oils sands involves significant amounts of energy, and that contributes to a high level of CO2 emissions. We apply...

We consider the large range of estimated costs of meeting U.S. climate policy targets. Some of this range is due to different studies using different cost measures, and in principle such differences could be eliminated by more careful comparisons and greater transparency in studies that estimate...

During the 2009 Conference of the Parties meeting in Copenhagen, the Brazilian government announced voluntary targets to reduce GHG emissions, with the targets being reconfirmed in Cancun (2010) and in Durban (2011). An estimate is presented of the economic impact of alternative policies to...