The Effect of Metro Expansions on Air Pollution in Delhi

World Bank / by Deepti Goel and Sonam Gupta http://bit.ly/1HWNC7y The Delhi Metro (DM) is a mass rapid transit system serving the National Capital Region of India. It is also the world’s first rail project to earn carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism of the United Nations for reductions in CO2 emissions. Did the … Continue reading →

Carbon Pricing Revenues

Climate Markets and Investment Association (CMIA) http://bit.ly/1LHcWT2 [Yahoo! News] Governments around the world will this year raise around $22 billion from schemes putting a price on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions such as taxes or emissions trading systems, a report on Wednesday showed… The figure is up 46 percent from an estimated $15 billion raised in 2014, … Continue reading →

Expecting the Unexpected: Macroeconomic Volatility and Climate Policy—Summary

Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard Univ. / by Warwick McKibbin, Adele Morris and Peter Wilcoxen (dated “November 2008”) http://bit.ly/1OupSz4 KEY FINDINGS & RECOMMENDATIONS …All else equal, a climate regime that exacerbates downward macroeconomic shocks or depresses the benefits of positive macroeconomic shocks would be more costly and less stable than a system that better handles global … Continue reading →

Implementing Effective Carbon Pricing

The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate / by James Rydge http://bit.ly/1PkvX0c [Business Green] Carbon pricing does help to alleviate greenhouse gas emissions – and need not harm economic growth, according to a new report by the New Climate Economy (NCE) today. The paper looks at examples of carbon pricing being implemented across the world, … Continue reading →

Carbon Pricing, Fusion Style – Policy Issues to Consider When Carbon Taxes Meet Cap-and-Trade

Business Council of British Columbia http://bit.ly/1QhpyBe …While there appears to be a growing consensus on the need to price carbon, there is no consensus on the most effective means of doing so – either via taxes or trading schemes – and the debate continues. British Columbia, of course, was an early adopter of a carbon … Continue reading →

Internationally-Tradable Permits Can Be Riskier for a Country than an Internally-Imposed Carbon Price

Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard Univ. / by Martin L. Weitzman http://bit.ly/1LI5TJs This paper compares internationally-tradeable permits with a uniform carbon price, as seen through the lens of an individual country. To ensure a level playing field, these two approaches are initially calibrated to be welfare-equivalent for the country in a deterministic setting. While both … Continue reading →

Assessing the Social Costs and Benefits of Regulating Carbon Emissions

Reason Foundation / by Julian Morris http://reason.org/news/show/social-cost-of-carbon-study [Institute for Energy Research]  Julian Morris has produced a detailed study for Reason that explores the costs and benefits of carbon dioxide emissions. Morris concludes with the provocative claim that the weight of evidence suggests federal agencies should ignore carbon dioxide emissions when evaluating regulations, because on balance the “positive externalities” … Continue reading →

Alberta’s New Climate Change Discussion Paper

Climate Leadership Discussion Document Province of Alberta, Ministry of Environment and Parks http://www.alberta.ca/albertacode/images/Climate-Leadership-Discussion-Document.pdf [Calgary Herald] Here are five key points from the report: The NDP government wants to make an argument for action The first line of the report, from Environment Minister Shannon Phillips’ introduction, declares: “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges to … Continue reading →

Controlling Carbon Emissions from U.S. Power Plants: How a Tradable Performance Standard Compares to a Carbon Tax

Brookings Institution / by Warwick J. McKibbin, Adele Morris and Peter J. Wilcoxen http://brook.gs/1Uj8KfR Different pollution control policies, even if they achieve the same emissions goal, could have importantly different effects on the composition of the energy sector and economic outcomes. In this paper, we use the G-Cubed1 model of the global economy to compare two … Continue reading →

Economic Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States

Review of the Use of RGGI Auction Proceeds from the First Three-Year Compliance Period Analysis Group / by Paul J. Hibbard , et al. http://bit.ly/1TB5FaH [Forbes] …a new study from Boston consultancy Analysis Group shows that controlling and lowering CO2 emissions translates into a major economic development and jobs program with continued system reliability. The … Continue reading →