IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/enejou/v37y2016i2p155-180.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diffusion of Climate Technologies in the Presence of Commitment Problems

Author

Listed:
  • Taran Fæhn
  • Elisabeth T. Isaksen

Abstract

Publicly announced greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation targets and emissions pricing strategies by individual governments may suffer from inherent commitment problems. When emission prices are perceived as short-lived, socially cost-effective upfront investment in climate technologies may be hampered. This paper compares the social abatement cost of a uniform GHG pricing system with two policy options for overcoming such regulatory uncertainty: One combines the emissions pricing with a state guarantee scheme whereby the regulatory risk is borne by the government and one combines the system with subsidies for upfront climate technology investments. A technology-rich computable general equilibrium model is applied that accounts for abatement both within and beyond existing technologies. Our findings suggest a tripling of abatement costs if domestic climate policies fail to stimulate investment in new technological solutions. Since the cost of funding investment subsidies is found to be small, the subsidy scheme performs almost as well as the guarantee scheme.

Suggested Citation

  • Taran Fæhn & Elisabeth T. Isaksen, 2016. "Diffusion of Climate Technologies in the Presence of Commitment Problems," The Energy Journal, , vol. 37(2), pages 155-180, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:155-180
    DOI: 10.5547/01956574.37.2.tfae
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5547/01956574.37.2.tfae
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.5547/01956574.37.2.tfae?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefan Ambec & Mark A. Cohen & Stewart Elgie & Paul Lanoie, 2013. "The Porter Hypothesis at 20: Can Environmental Regulation Enhance Innovation and Competitiveness?," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 7(1), pages 2-22, January.
    2. Kiuila, O. & Rutherford, T.F., 2013. "The cost of reducing CO2 emissions: Integrating abatement technologies into economic modeling," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 62-71.
    3. Heggedal, Tom-Reiel & Jacobsen, Karl, 2011. "Timing of innovation policies when carbon emissions are restricted: An applied general equilibrium analysis," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 913-937.
    4. Roland Ismer & Karsten Neuhoff, 2009. "Commitments through financial options: an alternative for delivering climate change obligations," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 9-21, January.
    5. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Schneider, Stephen H., 1999. "Induced technological change and the attractiveness of CO2 abatement policies," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3-4), pages 211-253, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Taran Faehn and Elisabeth T. Isaksen, 2016. "Diffusion of Climate Technologies in the Presence of Commitment Problems," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    2. Cameron Hepburn & Jacquelyn Pless & David Popp, 2018. "Policy Brief—Encouraging Innovation that Protects Environmental Systems: Five Policy Proposals," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 154-169.
    3. Raphael Calel & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2016. "Environmental Policy and Directed Technological Change: Evidence from the European Carbon Market," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(1), pages 173-191, March.
    4. Taran Faehn & Gabriel Bachner & Robert Beach & Jean Chateau & Shinichiro Fujimori & Madanmohan Ghosh & Meriem Hamdi-Cherif & Elisa Lanzi & Sergey Paltsev & Toon Vandyck & Bruno Cunha & Rafael Garaffa , 2020. "Capturing Key Energy and Emission Trends in CGE models: Assessment of Status and Remaining Challenges," Journal of Global Economic Analysis, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, vol. 5(1), pages 196-272, June.
    5. Dechezlepretre, Antoine & Martin, Ralf & Mohnen, Myra, 2014. "Knowledge spillovers from clean and dirty technologies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60501, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Lucas Bretschger & Roger Ramer, 2012. "Sectoral Growth Effects of Energy Policies in an Increasing-Varieties Model of the Swiss Economy," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 148(II), pages 137-166, June.
    7. Kolsuz, Gunes & Yeldan, A. Erinc, 2017. "Economics of climate change and green employment: A general equilibrium investigation for Turkey," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 1240-1250.
    8. Bretschger, Lucas & Ramer, Roger & Schwark, Florentine, 2011. "Growth effects of carbon policies: Applying a fully dynamic CGE model with heterogeneous capital," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 963-980.
    9. Bye, Brita & Jacobsen, Karl, 2011. "Restricted carbon emissions and directed R&D support; an applied general equilibrium analysis," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 543-555, May.
    10. Brita Bye & Karl Jacobsen, 2009. "On general versus emission saving R&D support," Discussion Papers 584, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    11. Vitaliy Roud & Thomas Wolfgang Thurner, 2018. "The Influence of State‐Ownership on Eco‐Innovations in Russian Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 22(5), pages 1213-1227, October.
    12. Emanuele Massetti & Lea Nicita, 2010. "The Optimal Climate Policy Portfolio when Knowledge Spills across Sectors," CESifo Working Paper Series 2988, CESifo.
    13. Fang, Mingyue & Nie, Huihua & Shen, Xinyi, 2023. "Can enterprise digitization improve ESG performance?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    14. Lawrence H. Goulder, 2013. "Markets for Pollution Allowances: What Are the (New) Lessons?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 27(1), pages 87-102, Winter.
    15. Sam Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn, 2009. "Carbon markets in space and time," GRI Working Papers 3, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Rosendahl, Knut Einar, 2004. "Cost-effective environmental policy: implications of induced technological change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 1099-1121, November.
    17. Zhangsheng Liu & Liuqingqing Yang & Liqin Fan, 2021. "Induced Effect of Environmental Regulation on Green Innovation: Evidence from the Increasing-Block Pricing Scheme," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-15, March.
    18. Katris, Antonios & Turner, Karen, 2021. "Can different approaches to funding household energy efficiency deliver on economic and social policy objectives? ECO and alternatives in the UK," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    19. Li, Weiping & Chen, Xiaoqi & Huang, Jiashun & Gong, Xu & Wu, Wei, 2022. "Do environmental regulations affect firm's cash holdings? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    20. Orsatti, Gianluca & Pezzoni, Michele & Quatraro, Francesco, 2017. "Where Do Green Technologies Come From? Inventor Teams’ Recombinant Capabilities and the Creation of New Knowledge," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201711, University of Turin.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:enejou:v:37:y:2016:i:2:p:155-180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.