Suchergebnisse

This thesis analysis the impact of private road transport under emission trading using two different Computable General Equilibrium models. A static multi-region model with special emphasis on the European Union, addresses the welfare impact of road transport under the European Emission Trading System. Including terms-of-trade effects, this model does not account for congestion which is the main externality of road transport. Furthermore, technological details of electricity generation which are an important factor in evaluating climate policies are not included. Therefore, the second model is a static Small Open Economy model of the German economy including congestion effects and detailed technological characteristics of electricity generation. The results of both models highlight the important role of already existing taxes on transport fuels for the evaluation of carbon mitigation measures in road transportation.

Carbon pricing is a key instrument for achieving Europe's ambitious climate targets. It is therefore not surprising that reform of the EU carbon market is at the heart of the measures proposed by the European Commission (EC). One important policy innovation would be the introduction of a second emissions trading system in Europe that integrates other sectors like buildings and road transport. This addresses some of the inefficiencies of the existing, fragmented EU carbon markets, but at the same time requires a policy decision with potentially large implications in terms of economic costs to achieve European climate goals: How should the EU carbon budget be divided between two separate carbon markets? Achieving the EU climate target of 55 per cent causes a decrease in the aggregate consumption level of the EU-27 countries of 2.8 per cent or 248.9 billion euros in 2030 under current EU climate policy (without considering possible benefits from avoided climate change damages). A new emissions trading system reduces these costs by 21.5 per cent under the current allocation of the EU climate budget and by 33.0 per cent under the allocation proposed by the European Commission. Larger cost reductions of up to 61.6 per cent are possible if an even larger emissions budget is allocated to the buildings and transport sectors. Given the difficulties to politically determine the allocation of the EU climate budget, market-based flexibility mechanisms are desirable in order to achieve climate targets at the lowest economic cost.

This paper develops a multi-country multi-sector general equilibrium model, integrating high-frequency electricity dispatch and trade decisions, to study the e ects of electricity transmission infrastructure (TI) expansion and re- newable energy (RE) penetration in Europe for gains from trade and carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector. TI can bene t or degrade environ- mental outcomes, depending on RE penetration: it complements emissions abatement by mitigating dispatch problems associated with volatile and spa- tially dispersed RE but also promotes higher average generation from low- cost coal if RE production is too low. Against the backdrop of European decarbonization and planned TI expansion, we nd that emissions increase for current and targeted year-2020 levels of RE production and decrease for year-2030 targets. Enhanced TI yields sizeable gains from trade that de- pend positively on RE penetration, without creating large adverse impacts on regional equity.

This paper analyzes hybrid emissions trading systems (ETS) under partitioned environmental regulation when firms' abatement costs and future emissions are uncertain. We show that hybrid policies that introduce bounds on the price or the quantity of abatement provide a way to hedge against differences in marginal abatement costs across partitions. Price bounds are more efficient than abatement bounds as they also use information on firms' abatement technologies while abatement bounds can only address emissions uncertainty. Using a numerical stochastic optimization model with equilibrium constraints for the European carbon market, we find that introducing hybrid policies in EU ETS reduces expected excess abatement costs of achieving targeted emissions reductions under EU climate policy by up to 89 percent. We also find that under partitioned regulation there is a high likelihood for hybrid policies to yield sizeable ex-post cost reductions.

This paper analyzes hybrid emissions trading systems (ETSs) under partitioned environmental regulation when firms' abatement costs and future emissions are uncertain. We show that hybrid policies that introduce bounds on the price or the quantity of abatement provide a way to hedge against differences in marginal abatement costs across partitions. Price bounds are more efficient than abatement bounds as they also use information on firms' abatement technologies while abatement bounds can only address emission uncertainty. Using a numerical stochastic optimization model with equilibrium constraints for the European carbon market, we find that introducing hybrid policies in EU ETS reduces expected excess abatement costs of achieving targeted emission reductions under EU climate policy by up to 89%. We also find that under partitioned regulation there is a high likelihood for hybrid policies to yield sizeable ex-post cost reductions.

This paper analyzes hybrid emissions trading systems (ETS) under partitioned environmental regulation when firms' abatement costs and future emissions are uncertain. We show that hybrid policies that introduce bounds on the price or the quantity of abatement provide a way to hedge against differences in marginal abatement costs across partitions. Price bounds are more efficient than abatement bounds as they also use information on firms' abatement technologies while abatement bounds can only address emissions uncertainty. Using a numerical stochastic optimization model with equilibrium constraints for the European carbon market, we find that introducing hybrid policies in EU ETS reduces expected excess abatement costs of achieving targeted emissions reductions under EU climate policy by up to 89 percent. We also find that under partitioned regulation there is a high likelihood for hybrid policies to yield sizeable ex-post cost reductions.