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Carbon pricing in climate policy : seven reasons, complementary instruments, and political economy considerations
Baranzini, Andrea (Haute Ecole de Gestion Genève)
Carattini, Stefano (Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies)
Howarth, Richard B. (Dartmouth College)
Padilla, Emilio (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia Aplicada)
Roca Jusmet, Jordi (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament d'Economia)
van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals)

Date: 2017
Abstract: Carbon pricing is a recurrent theme in debates on climate policy. Discarded at the 2009 COP in Copenhagen, it remained part of deliberations for a climate agreement in subsequent years. As there is still much misunderstanding about the many reasons to implement a global carbon price, ideological resistance against it prospers. Here, we present the main arguments for carbon pricing, to stimulate a fair and well-informed discussion about it. These include considerations that have received little attention so far. We stress that a main reason to use carbon pricing is environmental effectiveness at a relatively low cost, which in turn contributes to enhance social and political acceptability of climate policy. This includes the property that corrected prices stimulate rapid environmental innovations. These arguments are underappreciated in the public debate, where pricing is frequently downplayed and the erroneous view that innovation policies are sufficient is widespread. Carbon pricing and technology policies are, though, largely complementary and thus are both needed for effective climate policy. We also comment on the complementarity of other instruments to carbon pricing. We further discuss distributional consequences of carbon pricing and present suggestions on how to address these. Other political economy issues that receive attention are lobbying, co-benefits, international policy coordination, motivational crowding in/out, and long-term commitment. The overview ends with reflections on implementing a global carbon price, whether through a carbon tax or emissions trading. The discussion goes beyond traditional arguments from environmental economics by including relevant insights from energy research and innovation studies as well.
Grants: Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad ECO2015-67524-R
Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2014/SGR-950
Note: Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu MdM-2015-0552
Rights: Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades. Creative Commons
Language: Anglès
Document: Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Published in: Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Climate change, Vol. 8, issue 4 (Jul./Aug. 2017) , e462, ISSN 1757-7780

DOI: 10.1002/wcc.462


17 p, 199.2 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA) > Environmental and Climate Economics (ECE)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles

 Record created 2018-04-06, last modified 2023-05-15



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