Advanced Search

Global Climate Policy Architecture and Political Feasibility: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets to Attain 460 ppm CO2 Concentrations

Contents:

Author Info

  • Valentina Bosetti
  • Jeffrey A. Frankel

Abstract

Many analysts have identified three important gaps in the Kyoto Protocol: the absence of emission targets extending far into the future, the absence of participation by the United States, China, and other developing countries, and the absence of reason to think that members will abide by commitments. It appears that political constraints on the country-by-country distribution of economic costs are a key stumbling block to filling these gaps. This paper investigates formulas that assign quantitative allocations of emissions, across countries, one budget period at a time, to see if it is possible to satisfy the constraints. The two-part plan: (i) China and other developing countries accept targets at BAU in the coming budget period, the same period in which the US first agrees to cuts below BAU; and (ii) all countries are asked in the future to make further cuts in accordance with a formula which sums up a Progressive Reductions Factor, a Latecomer Catch-up Factor, and a Gradual Equalization Factor. An earlier plan for specific parameter values in the formulas – Frankel (2009), as analyzed by Bosetti, et al (2009) – achieved the environmental goal that concentrations of CO2 plateau at 500 ppm by 2100. It succeeded in obeying our political constraints, such as keeping the economic cost for every country below the thresholds of Y=1% of income in Present Discounted Value, and X=5% of income in the worst period. In pursuit of more aggressive environmental goals, we now advance the dates at which some countries are asked to begin cutting below BAU, within our framework. We also tinker with the values for the parameters in the formulas. The resulting target paths for emissions are run through the WITCH model to find their economic and environmental effects. We find that it is not possible to attain a 380 ppm CO2 goal (roughly in line with the 2°C target) without violating our political constraints. We were however, able to attain a concentration goal of 460 ppm CO2 with looser political constraints. The most important result is that we had to raise the threshold of costs above which a country drops out, to as high as Y =3.4% of income in PDV terms, or X =12 % in the worst budget period. Whether one concludes from these results that the more aggressive environmental goals are, or are not, attainable at reasonable economic costs, the approach developed here provides a framework for exploring maximization of the tradeoff between the benefits of cutting global emissions and the political feasibility of getting individual countries to share the burden.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15516.pdf
Download Restriction: Access to the full text is generally limited to series subscribers, however if the top level domain of the client browser is in a developing country or transition economy free access is provided. More information about subscriptions and free access is available at http://www.nber.org/wwphelp.html. Free access is also available to older working papers.

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.

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 15516.

Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Length:
Date of creation: Nov 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15516

Note: EEE IFM
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: ().

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
  1. Valentina Bosetti & Carlo Carraro & Marzio Galeotti & Emanuele Massetti & Massimo Tavoni, 2006. "WITCH. A World Induced Technical Change Hybrid Model," Working Papers 2006_46, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
  2. Joseph E. Aldy & Scott Barrett & Robert N. Stavins, 2003. "Thirteen Plus One: A Comparison of Global Climate Policy Architectures," Working Papers 2003.64, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  3. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2009. "An Elaborated Global Climate Policy Architecture: Specific Formulas and Emission Targets for All Countries in All Decades," NBER Working Papers 14876, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Sheila M. Olmstead & Robert N. Stavins, 2006. "An International Policy Architecture for the Post-Kyoto Era," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 35-38, May.
  5. Warwick McKibbin & Adele Morris & Peter Wilcoxen, 2008. "Expecting The Unexpected: Macroeconomic Volatility And Climate Policy," CAMA Working Papers 2008-35, Australian National University, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis.
  6. Enrica De Cian & Valentina Bosetti & Alessandra Sgobbi & Massimo Tavoni, 2009. "The 2008 WITCH Model: New Model Features and Baseline," Working Papers 2009.85, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
  7. Valentina Bosetti & Carlo Carraro & Marzio Galeotti & Emanuele Massetti & Massimo Tavoni, 2006. "A World induced Technical Change Hybrid Model," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I), pages 13-38.
  8. Pizer, William A., 2007. "The Evolution of a Global Climate Change Agreement," Discussion Papers dp-07-03, Resources For the Future.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
Cited by:
  1. Emanuele Massetti, 2011. "Carbon tax scenarios for China and India: exploring politically feasible mitigation goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 209-227, September.
  2. Olmstead, Sheila M. & Stavins, Robert N., 2010. "Three Key Elements of Post-2012 International Climate Policy Architecture," Discussion Papers dp-10-34, Resources For the Future.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15516

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.