The Kyoto Protocol, which came into force in February 2005, allows countries to resort to [`]supplementary activities', consisting particularly in carbon sequestration in agricultural soils. Existing papers studying the optimal carbon sequestration recognize the importance of the temporality of sequestration, but overlook the fact that it is an asymmetric dynamic process. This paper takes explicitly into account the temporality of sequestration. Its first contribution lies in the modelling of the asymmetry of the sequestration/de-sequestration process at a micro level, and of its consequences at a macro level. Its second contribution is empirical. We compute numerically the optimal path of sequestration/de-sequestration for specific damage and cost functions, and a calibration that mimics roughly the world conditions. We show that with these assumptions sequestration must be permanent, and that the error made when sequestration is supposed immediate can be very significant.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 32 (2008) Issue (Month): 12 (December) Pages: 3847-3865 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: