Because of the global commons nature of climate change, international cooperation among nations will likely be necessary for meaningful action at the global level. At the same time, it will inevitably be up to the actions of sovereign nations to put in place policies that bring about meaningful...

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...

Based on data from broadly representative surveys among more than 1,400 citizens in Germany and Sweden, this paper empirically examines the support of different groups of climate-related (passenger) transport policy measures targeting vehicle use, public transport, air travel, and bicycle use....

In creating a level playing field that facilitates the deployment of renewable energy technology (RET), the traditional energy policy regime based on eliminating RET’s cost gaps versus fossil energy technology (FET) may be not sufficient. Building on an economic model of energy technology...

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...

This essay provides an overview of the major emissions trading programs of the past thirty years on which significant documentation exists, and draws a number of important lessons for future applications of this environmental policy instrument. References to a larger number of other emissions...

In this work, we investigate which countries have been more central during Phases I and II of the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS) with respect to the different types of accounts operating in the system. We borrow a set of centrality measures from Network Theory's tools to describe how...

This doctoral thesis, organized in three self-contained chapters, provides an analysis of the economic effects associated with the extraction of natural resources and the transition from an economy based on fossil fuel use to an economy relying primarily on renewable energy sources. Chapter 1...

Technology policy is the most widespread form of climate policy and is often preferred over seemingly efficient carbon pricing. We propose a new explanation for this observation: gains that predominantly accrue to households with large capital assets and that influence majority decisions in...

In recent years there has been growing attention on the risks posed by climate change. One relevant question for financial stability is to which extent the materialisation of transition risks emerging from the sudden implementation of climate change mitigation policies would impact the financial...