International Climate Regime beyond 2012 : Are Quota Allocation Rules Robust to Uncertainty?

Lecocq, Franck ; Crassous, Renaud

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABATEMENT;    ABATEMENT COST;    ABATEMENT COSTS;    ABATEMENT POTENTIAL;    ALLOWANCE TRADING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3000
RP-ID  :  WPS3000

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Bringing the United States and majordeveloping countries to control their greenhouse gasemissions will be the key challenge for the internationalclimate regime beyond the Kyoto Protocol. But in the currentquantity-based coordination, large uncertainties surroundingfuture emissions and future abatement opportunities make thecosts of any commitment very difficult to assess ex ante,hence a strong risk that the negotiation will be stalled.The authors use a partial equilibrium model of theinternational allowance market to quantify the economicconsequences of the main post-Kyoto quota allocation rulesproposed in the literature and to assess how robust theseconsequences are to uncertainty on future population,economic, and emissions growth. They confirm that,regardless of the rule selected, the prices of allowancesand the net costs of climate mitigation for all parties arevery sensitive to uncertainty, and in some scenarios verylarge. This constitutes a strong barrier against adoptingany of these schemes if no additional mechanism isintroduced to limit the uncertainty on costs. On the otherhand, parties' preferred (least-cost) rules areessentially robust to uncertainty. And although thesepreferences differ across countries, the authors'analysis suggest some bargaining is possible if developingcountries make a commitment and join the allowance marketearlier in exchange for tighter quotas in the North. Thisunderscores the importance of the rules governing the entryof new parties into the coordination. But the magnitude ofthe win-win potential strongly depends on how differentabatement costs are assumed to be between industrial anddeveloping countries, and on how long that gap is assumed to persist.