IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/tcpoxx/v14y2014i1p122-147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional GHG reduction targets based on effort sharing: a comparison of studies

Author

Listed:
  • Niklas H�hne
  • Michel den Elzen
  • Donovan Escalante

Abstract

Over 40 studies that analyse future GHG emissions allowances or reduction targets for different regions based on a wide range of effort-sharing approaches and long-term concentration stabilization levels are compared. This updates previous work undertaken for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Regional reduction targets differ significantly for each effort-sharing approach. For example, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 1990 region, new proposals that emphasize the equity principles of responsibility, capability, and need, and those based on equal cumulative per capita emissions (carbon budgets), lead to relatively stringent emissions reduction targets. In order to reach a low concentration stabilization level of 450 ppm CO 2 e, the allowances under all effort sharing approaches in OECD1990 for 2030 would be approximately half of the emissions of 2010 with a large range, roughly two-thirds in the Economies in Transition (EIT), roughly at the 2010 emissions level or slightly below in Asia, slightly above the 2010 level in the Middle East and Africa and well below the 2010 level in Latin America. For 2050, allowances in OECD1990 and EIT would be a fraction of today's emissions, approximately half of 2010 emission levels in Asia, and possibly less than half of the 2010 level in Latin America. Policy relevance The concept of equity and the stringency of future national GHG reduction targets are at the heart of the current debate on the new international climate change agreement to be adopted in 2015. Policy insights gained from an analysis of over 40 studies, which have quantitatively analysed the proposed GHG reduction targets, are presented. It is found that the outcome of effort-sharing approaches is often largely determined by the way the equity principle is implemented and that the distributional impacts of such approaches can be significantly different depending on the criteria used, the stabilization level and shape of the global emissions pathway. However, the current literature only covers a small proportion of the possible allocation approaches. There should thus be an in-depth modelling comparison to ensure consistency and comparability of results and inform decision making regarding the reduction of GHG emissions.

Suggested Citation

  • Niklas H�hne & Michel den Elzen & Donovan Escalante, 2014. "Regional GHG reduction targets based on effort sharing: a comparison of studies," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 122-147, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:tcpoxx:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:122-147
    DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2014.849452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14693062.2014.849452
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/14693062.2014.849452?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peterson, Sonja & Klepper, Gernot, 2007. "Distribution matters: Taxes vs. emissions trading in post Kyoto climate regimes," Kiel Working Papers 1380, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Bosetti, Valentina & Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2011. "Politically Feasible Emission Target Formulas to Attain 460 ppm CO2 Concentrations," Scholarly Articles 4735391, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    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. Siebert, Horst, 2008. "Rules for the global environment," Kiel Working Papers 1422, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Wachsmuth, Jakob & Denishchenkova, Alexandra & Fekete, Hanna & Parra, Paola & Schaeffer, Michiel & Ancygier, Andrzej & Sferra, Fabio, 2019. "Fairness- and cost-effectiveness-based approaches to effort-sharing under the Paris agreement," Working Papers "Sustainability and Innovation" S04/2019, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    3. Schleich, Joachim & Dütschke, Elisabeth & Schwirplies, Claudia & Ziegler, Andreas, 2014. "Citizens' perceptions of justice in international climate policy: Empirical insights from China, Germany and the US," Working Papers "Sustainability and Innovation" S2/2014, Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI).
    4. Peterson, Everett B. & Schleich, Joachim & Duscha, Vicki, 2011. "Environmental and economic effects of the Copenhagen pledges and more ambitious emission reduction targets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3697-3708, June.
    5. Hübler, Michael, 2009. "Can carbon based import tariffs effectively reduce carbon emissions?," Kiel Working Papers 1565, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    6. Pan, Xunzhang & Teng, Fei & Ha, Yuejiao & Wang, Gehua, 2014. "Equitable Access to Sustainable Development: Based on the comparative study of carbon emission rights allocation schemes," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 632-640.
    7. Fabio Sferra & Massimo Tavoni, 2013. "Endogenous Participation in a Partial Climate Agreement with Open Entry: A Numerical Assessment," Working Papers 2013.60, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    8. Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2010. "Wage inequality in trade-in-tasks models," Conference papers 331923, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    9. Hübler, Michael, 2012. "Carbon tariffs on Chinese exports: Emissions reduction, threat, or farce?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 315-327.
    10. Joachim Schleich & Elisabeth Dütschke & Claudia Schwirplies & Andreas Ziegler, 2016. "Citizens' perceptions of justice in international climate policy: an empirical analysis," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 50-67, January.
    11. Frédéric Branger, Philippe Quirion, Julien Chevallier, 2017. "Carbon Leakage and Competitiveness of Cement and Steel Industries Under the EU ETS: Much Ado About Nothing," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 3).
    12. Thomas Eichner & Rüdiger Pethig, 2009. "Taxing and trading carbon emissions in the EU: Distributional comparisons of mixed policies," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 135-09, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.
    13. van Ruijven, Bas J. & Weitzel, Matthias & den Elzen, Michel G.J. & Hof, Andries F. & van Vuuren, Detlef P. & Peterson, Sonja & Narita, Daiju, 2012. "Emission allowances and mitigation costs of China and India resulting from different effort-sharing approaches," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 116-134.
    14. Ekholm, Tommi & Soimakallio, Sampo & Moltmann, Sara & Höhne, Niklas & Syri, Sanna & Savolainen, Ilkka, 2010. "Effort sharing in ambitious, global climate change mitigation scenarios," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 1797-1810, April.
    15. Weitzel, Matthias, 2014. "Worse off from reduced cost? The role of policy design under uncertain technological advancement," Kiel Working Papers 1926, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Matthias Weitzel, 2017. "Who gains from technological advancement? The role of policy design when cost development for key abatement technologies is uncertain," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 151-181, January.
    17. Peterson, Sonja & Weitzel, Matthias, 2014. "Reaching a climate agreement: Do we have to compensate for energy market effects of climate policy?," Kiel Working Papers 1965, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:tcpoxx:v:14:y:2014:i:1:p:122-147. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/tcpo20 .

    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.