Climate Change


31 - 60 of 191
27 May 2010

This study analyses the economic and political consequences of introducing a tax on the carbon content of imported goods at EU borders and whether such a tax would be compatible with WTO rules. The major findings are:
1. A CO2 border tax or import tariff would increase global welfare.
2. Such a carbon import tariff can be made to be compatible with WTO rules.
3. There are no insurmountable practical obstacles to introducing such a tariff.

27 May 2010

Sectoral approaches can be considered part of a transition towards a global carbon market. Providing the potentially strongest link between the EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) and sectoral approaches, sectoral benchmarks can be used for setting caps, free allocation, or can become a catalyst for linking carbon markets. There would be at least three ways to strengthen the effectiveness of sectoral approaches through the choice of performance, metrics, reporting and compliance.

05 May 2010

This study explores ways to integrate industry in the process of designing and operationalising sectoral approaches to climate change according to a guideline that could be agreed in Cancún in December 2010 or later. One possible effective form of industry’s contribution could be their participation in a consultative body based on a public-private partnership and tasked to steer this process.

22 April 2010

Sectoral approaches to mitigating climate change depend on setting goals that incorporate performance indicators – such as benchmarks and the effective application of measurement, reporting and verification requirements – supported by well-developed data systems. At the same time, each host country deciding to adopt these approaches needs to develop and demonstrate the ability to implement the scheme. This report briefly introduces the basic requirements for sectoral approaches while drawing lessons from current efforts.

01 April 2010

The aim of this paper is to review major assessments of the Copenhagen Accord with a focus on what it will ultimately deliver, especially within the context of the economic crisis. The paper also looks at the broader geopolitical implications and the resulting challenges for the EU, the role of the UN and the linkages of the UN negotiations with the Copenhagen Accord.

05 March 2010

This Working Document complements the CEPS Policy Brief, Understanding India’s climate agenda, and elaborates on three key issues related to the country’s energy challenges: access to energy, the future emissions trajectory and energy subsidies. This study looks into the making and framing of the country’s domestic climate agenda from a political economy perspective.

16 February 2010

This CEPS Working Document reviews the potential impacts of climate change on 11 key indicator categories and 3 large regions covering the entire European Union. Although there remains a considerable degree of uncertainty about local and regional effects, the paper highlights strong distributional patterns. Northern Europe might even experience some positive effects, while the Mediterranean will mostly be negatively affected.

15 January 2010

Noriko Fujiwara performs a quick post-mortem on the outcome and performance of the EU at Copenhagen in this new CEPS Commentary and then swiftly moves on to draw lessons for how the EU can effectively and forcefully project itself into the forthcoming series of meetings leading to the next annual conference (COP16) in Mexico City before the end of the year.

12 January 2010

The EU is left wondering what its future role will be in the next round of talks on climate change, after having played a marginal role in Copenhagen, particularly at the close of negotiations. What happens now will condition much of the EU’s position and leverage in the future. Among the more pressing tasks is the need to develop a strategy for co-operation with the US.

25 December 2009

Days after the meeting ended, people are still asking themselves whether the outcome of the Copenhagen summit was positive or not. What is striking is that the outcome is generally seen in a more favourable light in the US than in Europe. The difference can probably be explained by different expectations and perspectives. In this new CEPS commentary, CEPS Fellows Christian Egenhofer and Anton Georgiev make a first attempt at deciphering the implications of the accord for the EU.

11 December 2009

The costs and benefits of carbon tariffs have been extensively discussed in terms of competitiveness and carbon leakage. This Commentary argues that global welfare should be the focus. EU tariffs against developing country exports would increase global welfare and the proceeds from the tariffs could help poorer exporting countries reduce the carbon intensity of their economies.

11 December 2009

The purpose of a cap-and-trade system is to help in the fight against global climate change. This paper warns that a unilateral approach could increase global emissions by shifting production to more carbon-intensive methods abroad. Acting alone, the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme may be doing more harm than good.

05 December 2009

In March 2009, CEPS formed a Task Force under the chairmanship of Anders Wijkman, former MEP, Vice Chairman of the Taellberg Foundation and Vice President of the Club of Rome, to examine the impacts of climate change and the extent to which the EU budget can effectively assist in addressing them.

20 November 2009

This report is based on discussions in the CEPS Task Force on the Clean Development Mechanism and Future Flexible Mechanisms post-2012, chaired by Ulrika Raab, Senior Advisor at the Swedish Energy Agency. It was assumed that flexible mechanisms will play a crucial role in facilitating a positive outcome in the UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December 2009, and that they will inspire a wide range of actions by participating countries on their own and directing attention to business investment opportunities.

01 October 2009

In a ruling last week, the European Court of First Instance struck down the decision of the European Commission to reject the CO2 emissions national allocation plans of Poland and Estonia. In this new commentary, CEPS Senior Fellow Christian Egenhofer argues that, in order to ensure the integrity, predictability and stability of the carbon market, the Commission should reach a political settlement with Poland, Estonia and the other member states that have taken the matter to court.

02 September 2009

In light of the immature state of preparations for the international climate change negotiations in Copenhagen in December, CEPS Senior Research Fellow Christian Egenhofer predicts that the best outcome to be hoped for at this point is an agreement to continue negotiations in earnest. He warns the developed countries, led by the EU, not to accede too easily to the less-founded demands of developing countries, just to be able to declare a political victory.

06 July 2009

This paper presents a simple, basic model to compute the welfare consequences of the introduction of a tariff on the CO2 content of imported goods in a country that already imposes a domestic carbon tax. The main finding is that the introduction of a carbon import tariff increases global welfare (and not just the welfare of the importing country) if there is no (or insufficient) pricing of carbon abroad. A higher domestic price of carbon justifies a higher import tariff.

23 June 2009

In an effort to address the financing gap for clean energy projects in developing countries, the Global Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Fund (GEEREF) was set up in late 2008 as an innovative financing instrument aimed at leveraging private investments with public funds. The purpose of this CEPS Policy Brief is to give an update on GEEREF with a special focus on its financing and possible impacts of the financial crisis. The paper concludes that the strength of GEEREF is not its current financial volume but the innovative nature of the instrument.

15 May 2009

This policy brief builds on results arising from the mitigation and policy appraisal research domains of the ADAM project (Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: Supporting European Climate Policy). Funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK, ADAM is an integrated research project running from 2006 to 2009 that will lead to a better understanding of the trade-offs and conflicts that exist between adaptation and mitigation policies.

28 November 2008

The annual climate change conference (COP14/CMP4) will take place in Poznań, 1–12 December 2008. This Policy Brief aims at providing a brief assessment of where we are on the road from Bali to Copenhagen, thinking ahead of Poznań in relation to the current negotiating environment and exploring the possible nature of an agreed outcome to be reached in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

30 October 2008

Increasingly people ask how the financial crisis will impact future climate change policy. While intuitively many assume that a recession will reduce the ambition of EU and other countries to press ahead with climate change policies, CEPS researcher Christian Egenhofer argues in this commentary that the opposite may well be the case.

24 October 2008

This paper summarises various estimates of the financial impacts of climate change. It differentiates between studies referring to incremental costs (UNFCCC, World Bank, Oxfam, UNDP, OIES) and those referring to costs expressed as a percentage of global economic output (Stern Review, UNDP, Vattenfall, European Commission, OECD, IPCC). Based on these studies, the paper presents the potential order of magnitude of costs to the EU27, as well as estimations of the role of the public sector in contributing to these costs.

24 October 2008

This paper explore ways of financing mitigation of and adaptation to climate change by asking: Where should the funds come from and how should they be delivered? The authors discuss the need to shift investment patterns and identify possible instruments to assist this process. They review potential instruments for raising revenues and examine existing and new funding instruments and disbursement. A penultimate section describes recent proposals for a new finance model before the concluding section, which lists a number of questions for future discussion.

24 October 2008

The past decade has seen a surge in research and policy analysis on ways in which technology and finance can support mitigation. Similar studies for adaptation are much more recent, and their results therefore less mature. This is a potential bottleneck in the negotiations towards an agreement in Copenhagen. This paper aims to facilitate discussions on adaptation finance by presenting a summary overview of the current state of knowledge and policy initiatives, and by outlining a number of issues that would need to be considered in the negotiation process.

07 October 2008

Observing that the US Congress was able to reach agreement over support to the US banking sector within two weeks, Arno Behrens bemoans the fact that the US and other governments remain reluctant to contribute significantly to the global climate change bill. Instead of buying bad assets, however, he asserts that climate change mitigation is an investment in a global public good and in future prosperity. While cautioning against taking a hasty decision, he argues that there is a strong case to be made for increasing global resources for adaptation and mitigation with all due speed.

03 October 2008

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is seen as key to the achievement of EU and global climate change targets, yet there appears to be no obvious budget for its demonstration phase. In this new Policy Brief, CEPS Senior Researcher Christian Egenhofer makes the case for public support...

30 September 2008

This paper analyses the variety of different external aid initiatives and financing mechanisms of the European Commission addressing climate change and development objectives, such as those stemming from the 2004 EU Action Plan on Climate Change and Development, from the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) and those under the Thematic Programme for Environment and Sustainable Management of Natural Resources (ENRTP). The paper also outlines related Commission commitments with the European Investment Bank (EIB), the World Bank and the United Nations.

25 September 2008

EU climate policy is based on GHG emissions reduction (mitigation) coupled with measures aimed at responding efficiently to the unavoidable consequences of climate change (adaptation). However, as the European Commission recently stated in its Green Paper on adaptation in Europe, there is still a need to develop an overall EU adaptation strategy. Moreover, such a strategy should take into consideration both efficiency and equity concerns. In this article we propose a framework for EU adaptation policy that addresses both concerns and which enables a transparent decision-making process.

25 August 2008

This study focuses on the financial resources needed to fight global climate change and the implications for the EU budget. The authors apply four different methodologies to estimate global financing requirements and attempt to determine the resources that will be needed at the EU level to meet the EU’s climate change objectives. The study analyses current climate change spending of the EU budget, identifies shortcomings and indicates possibilities for correcting them.

08 July 2008

For some time now, CEPS has participated in a project funded by the European Commission called ’Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: Supporting European Climate Policy’ (ADAM). One research stream within the ADAM project focuses on the implications of mitigation and adaptation strategies for the electricity sector. Apart from mitigation of climate change, the electricity sector will also need to adapt to global warming. A warmer world requires less heating and more cooling.