Economic implications of moving toward global convergence on emission intensities
Abstract
One key contentious issue in climate change negotiations is the huge difference in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per capita between more advanced industrialized countries and other nations. This paper analyzes the costs of reducing this gap. Simulations using a global computable general equilibrium model show that the average the carbon dioxide intensity of advanced industrialized countries would remain almost twice as high as the average for other countries in 2030, even if the former group adopted a heavy uniform carbon tax of $250/tCO2 that reduced their emissions by 57 percent from the baseline. Global emissions would fall only 18 percent, due to an increase in emissions in the other countries. This reduction may not be adequate to move toward 2050 emission levels that avoid dangerous climate change. The tax would reduce Annex I countries'gross domestic product by 2.4 percent, and global trade volume by 2 percent. The economic costs of the tax vary significantly across countries, with heavier burdens on fossil fuel intensive economies such as Russia, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.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.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by The World Bank in its series Policy Research Working Paper Series with number 6115.Length:
Date of creation: 01 Jul 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6115
Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433
Phone: (202) 477-1234
Email:
Web page: http://www.worldbank.org/
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Climate Change Mitigation and Green House Gases; Environment and Energy Efficiency; Climate Change Economics; Energy and Environment; Carbon Policy and Trading;This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-07-14 (All new papers)
- NEP-CIS-2012-07-14 (Confederation of Independent States)
- NEP-ENE-2012-07-14 (Energy Economics)
- NEP-ENV-2012-07-14 (Environmental Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease 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.:
- Richard S.J. Tol, 2002.
"Emission Abatement Versus Development As Strategies To Reduce Vulnerability To Climate Change: An Application Of Fund,"
Working Papers
FNU-12, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Apr 2002.
- Tol, Richard S.J., 2005. "Emission abatement versus development as strategies to reduce vulnerability to climate change: an application of FUND," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(05), pages 615-629, October.
- Timilsina, Govinda R., 2008. "Atmospheric stabilization of CO2 emissions: Near-term reductions and absolute versus intensity-based targets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 1927-1936, June.
- Franck Lecocq & Jean-Charles Hourcade, 2012. "Unspoken ethical issues in the climate affair: Insights from a theoretical analysis of negotiation mandates," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 445-471, February.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6115For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Roula I. Yazigi).
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.

