OECD Economics Department Working Papers

ISSN :
1815-1973 (online)
DOI :
10.1787/18151973
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Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.
 

The Political Economy of Climate Change Mitigation Policies

How to Build a Constituency to Address Global Warming? You or your institution have access to this content

Authors:
Alain de Serres, John Llewellyn1, Preston Llewellyn2
Author Affiliations
  • 1: OECD, France

  • 2: Llewellyn Consulting, United Kingdom

Publication Date
05 Sep 2011
Bibliographic information
No.:
887
Pages
39
DOI
10.1787/5kg5d5nhcnkb-en

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Developments over the past few years have shown that reforms to address climate change are no less difficult to implement than reforms in other areas, even if the objective of limiting global warming is broadly accepted. In the case of global public goods such as the climate, the political challenge is further complicated by the need to convince voters that domestic action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is worth taking, notwithstanding the cost and uncertainties regarding other countries’ commitments. This paper seeks to draw a number of political-economy lessons from reform experience in other economic areas, and considers how these lessons can be applied to the particular case of climate change mitigation policy. It examines the main ingredients for building a constituency for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction policies at home, stressing the need to establish the credibility of the overall objective and intermediate targets. It also reviews the challenges faced in securing successful implementation of the least-cost set of policies, focusing on how to address the concerns raised by the uneven distribution of costs and benefits of pricing instruments without undermining their effectiveness.
Keywords:
climate change mitigation, carbon tax, cost-effectiveness, political economy, competitiveness
JEL Classification:
  • Q52: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Pollution Control Adoption Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
  • Q54: Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics / Environmental Economics / Climate; Natural Disasters; Global Warming