Carbon Offsets with Endogenous Environmental Policy

Strand, Jon

关键词: APPROACH;    AVAILABILITY;    BARREL OF OIL;    CARBON;    CARBON CAPTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5296
RP-ID  :  WPS5296

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Interests in obtaining carbon offsets inhost countries for Clean Development Mechanism projects mayserve as an obstacle to implementing more stringent generalenvironmental policies in the same countries. A relativelylax environmental policy, whereby carbon emissions remainhigh, can be advantageous for such countries as it leavesthem with a higher than otherwise scope for future emissionsreductions through Clean Development Mechanism and otheroffset projects. In this note, the potential to affect theavailability of future Clean Development Mechanism projectsis shown to distort environmental and energy policies ofClean Development Mechanism host countries in two ways.Measures to reduce use of fossil energy are weakened.Because this weakens private sector incentives to switch tolower-carbon technology through Clean Development Mechanismprojects, host governments then also find it attractive tosubsidize this switch, in order to maximize the country sadvantage from the Clean Development Mechanism.