The Economics of Climate Change Mitigation
Policies and Options for Global Action beyond 2012

Against the background of a projected doubling of world greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, this book explores feasible ways to abate them at least cost. Through quantitative analysis, it addresses key climate policy issues including: an ideal set of climate policy tools; the size of the economic and environmental costs of incomplete country or sector coverage of climate change mitigation policies; how to concretely develop a global carbon market; the case for, and what can we reasonably expect from, R&D and technology support policies; and the incentives for major emitting countries to join a climate change mitigation agreement.
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The Cost-Effectiveness of Climate Change Mitigation Policy Instruments
This chapter presents analysis of the various national and international policy instruments for tackling climate change, their respective pros and cons, and how they can best be integrated into a coherent policy framework. It assesses carbon taxes, emissions trading schemes (including cap-and-trade), standards, and technologysupport policies (R&D and clean technology deployment) according to three broad cost-effectiveness criteria: i) Static efficiency, i.e. does the instrument help fully exploit existing low-cost abatement opportunities, ii) Dynamic efficiency, i.e. does it encourage innovation in order to lower future abatement costs? iii) Ability to cope effectively with climate and economic uncertainties. The chapter concludes with a discussion of potential complementarities and overlap across policy instruments.
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