IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cer/papers/wp799.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The EU ETS is unprepared for 2040 and beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Silvester van Koten

Abstract

The central instruments of a cap-and-trade program are its abatement schedule and a system of guardrails designed to prevent permit prices from becoming excessively high or low. I argue that these instruments are currently poorly aligned in the EU’s cap-and-trade flagship climate policy, the EU ETS. I argue that the abatement schedule risks being overly ambitious and that the ETS’ existing guardrails, the Market Stability Reserve (MSR), do not offer sufficient protection against extreme prices. This misalignment may result in substantial economic costs and could ultimately undermine public support for the ETS. This paper recommends consideration of more effective guardrails, such as the well-established the price collar as implemented in California’s cap-and-trade program.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvester van Koten, 2025. "The EU ETS is unprepared for 2040 and beyond," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp799, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp799
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp799.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gilbert E. Metcalf & James H. Stock, 2023. "The Macroeconomic Impact of Europe's Carbon Taxes," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 265-286, July.
    2. Simone Borghesi & Michael Pahle & Grischa Perino & Simon Quemin & Maximilian Willner, 2023. "The Market Stability Reserve in the EU Emissions Trading System: A Critical Review," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 15(1), pages 131-152, October.
    3. Dechezleprêtre, Antoine & Nachtigall, Daniel & Venmans, Frank, 2023. "The joint impact of the European Union emissions trading system on carbon emissions and economic performance," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    4. Fabian Kesicki & Paul Ekins, 2012. "Marginal abatement cost curves: a call for caution," Climate Policy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 219-236, March.
    5. Burtraw, Dallas & Keyes, Amelia, 2018. "Recognizing Gravity as a Strong Force in Atmosphere Emissions Markets," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 47(2), pages 201-219, August.
    6. Pizer, William A., 2002. "Combining price and quantity controls to mitigate global climate change," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(3), pages 409-434, September.
    7. Ajanovic, Amela & Sayer, Marlene & Haas, Reinhard, 2024. "On the future relevance of green hydrogen in Europe," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 358(C).
    8. Bobasu, Alina & Dobrew, Michael & Repele, Amalia, 2025. "Energy price shocks, monetary policy and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    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. Quemin, Simon & Trotignon, Raphaël, 2021. "Emissions trading with rolling horizons," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Timothy N. Cason & John K. Stranlund & Frans P. de Vries, 2022. "Investment Incentives in Tradable Emissions Markets with Price Floors Approach," Purdue University Economics Working Papers 1331, Purdue University, Department of Economics.
    3. Rafaty, Ryan & Dolphin, Geoffroy & Pretis, Felix, 2025. "Carbon pricing and the elasticity of CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    4. Burtraw, Dallas & Holt, Charles & Palmer, Karen & Shobe, William M., 2020. "Quantities with Prices: Price-Responsive Allowance Supply in Environmental Markets," RFF Working Paper Series 20-17, Resources for the Future.
    5. Pavlović, B. & Trtica, N., 2024. "Projecting short to medium-term effects of carbon emissions trading on Serbia's GDP," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    6. Flori, Andrea & Borghesi, Simone & Marin, Giovanni, 2024. "The environmental-financial performance nexus of EU ETS firms: A quantile regression approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    7. Friesen, Lana & Gangadharan, Lata & Khezr, Peyman & MacKenzie, Ian A., 2022. "Mind your Ps and Qs! Variable allowance supply in the US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    8. Alex Dickson & Ian A. MacKenzie, 2025. "Adjustable Quantities," Discussion Papers Series 669, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    9. Peter Heindl & Sebastian Voigt, 2012. "Supply and demand structure for international offset permits under the Copenhagen Pledges," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 343-360, November.
    10. Huang, Xuhui & Zhou, Tao & Zhang, Ning, 2025. "How does the carbon market influence the marginal abatement cost? Evidence from China's coal-fired power plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 378(PA).
    11. Gustav Martinsson & László Sajtos & Per Strömberg & Christian Thomann, 2024. "The Effect of Carbon Pricing on Firm Emissions: Evidence from the Swedish CO2 Tax," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 37(6), pages 1848-1886.
    12. Fankhauser, Samuel & Hepburn, Cameron, 2010. "Designing carbon markets. Part I: Carbon markets in time," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 4363-4370, August.
    13. Saujot, Mathieu & Lefèvre, Benoit, 2016. "The next generation of urban MACCs. Reassessing the cost-effectiveness of urban mitigation options by integrating a systemic approach and social costs," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 124-138.
    14. Sam Fankhauser & Cameron Hepburn, 2009. "Carbon markets in space and time," GRI Working Papers 3, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    15. Xiang-Yu Wang & Bao-Jun Tang, 2018. "Review of comparative studies on market mechanisms for carbon emission reduction: a bibliometric analysis," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 94(3), pages 1141-1162, December.
    16. Joseph E. Aldy & William A. Pizer, 2009. "Issues in Designing U.S. Climate Change Policy," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(3), pages 179-210, July.
    17. Keppler, Jan Horst & Quemin, Simon & Saguan, Marcelo, 2022. "Why the sustainable provision of low-carbon electricity needs hybrid markets," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    18. Heijmans, Roweno J.R.K. & Engström, Max, 2024. "Time Horizons and Emissions Trading," Discussion Papers 2024/2, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    19. Chao-Ning Liao, 2009. "Technology adoption decisions under a mixed regulatory system of tradable permits and air pollution fees for the control of Total Suspended Particulates in Taiwan," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 35(2), pages 135-153, April.
    20. Jonathan Colmer & Ralf Martin & Mirabelle Muûls & Ulrich J. Wagner, 2020. "Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union emissions trading scheme," CEP Discussion Papers dp1728, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cer:papers:wp799. 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: Lucie Vasiljevova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eiacacz.html .

    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.