The Transatlantic Economic Council was a major U.S.-EU innovation designed to negotiate away non-tariff barriers between the two markets. To consolidate the promise of its first year at work, it needs to choose its issues and do something tangibly effective about them, according to Dan Price, the White House point man in the TEC.
Today's methods of dissent-sometimes peaceful, often violent, and usually controversial-take many forms in the age-old quest for social and political change. Globalization has become an ever-present force of transformation, affecting how opposition to the status quo arises and how people express their opposition. Technology and trade liberalization provide citizens with immediate access to information that shapes how they voice their dissent. At the same time, traditional factors-ethnic, economic, religious-continue to be a source of tension, provoking dissent in numerous ways. This Forum examines the evolving dynamics of contemporary dissent. While keeping an eye on dissent's consistent themes, such as the exclusion of minorities and debates over non-violent tactics, this Forum also explores the effects of new forces, from the internet to the WTO, on how people experience and confront marginalization. Examining the dynamics of dissent allows us to better understand how changes will continue to unfold as our diverse world becomes ever more integrated.
Topic:
Civil Society, Economics, Globalization, Government, and International Affairs
Warwick J. McKibbin, Adele Morris, and Peter J. Wilcoxen
Publication Date:
11-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Brookings Institution
Abstract:
To estimate the emissions reductions and costs of a climate policy, analysts usually compare a policy scenario with a baseline scenario of future economic conditions without the policy. Both scenarios require assumptions about the future course of numerous factors such as population growth, technical change, and non-climate policies like taxes. The results are only reliable to the extent that the future turns out to be reasonably close to the assumptions that went into the model.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, Economics, and Energy Policy
The overall economic efficiency of a quantity-based approach to greenhouse gas mitigation depends strongly on the extent to which such a program provides opportunities for compliance flexibility, particularly with regard to the timing of emissions abatement. Here I consider a program in which annual targets are determined by choosing the optimal time path of reductions consistent with an exogenously prescribed cumulative reduction target and fixed technology set. I then show that if the availability of low-carbon technology is initially more constrained than anticipated, the optimal reduction path shifts abatement toward later compliance periods. For this reason, a rigid policy in which fixed annual targets are strictly enforced in every year yields a cumulative environmental outcome identical to the optimal policy but an economic outcome worse than the optimal policy. On the other hand, a policy that aligns actual prices (or equivalently, costs) with expected prices by simply imposing an explicit price ceiling (often referred to as a "safety valve") yields the opposite result. Comparison among these multiple scenarios implies that there are significant gains to realizing the optimal path but that further refinement of the actual regulatory instrument will be necessary to achieve that goal in a real cap-and-trade system.
Of the many regulatory responses to climate change, cap-and-trade is the only one currently endorsed by large segments of the scientific, economic and political establishments. Under this type of system, regulators set the overall path of carbon dioxide (CO2) reductions, allocate or auction the appropriate number of emissions allowances to regulated entities and – through trading – allow the market to converge upon the least expensive set of abatement opportunities. As a result, the trading price of allowances is not set by the regulator as it would be under a tax system, but instead evolves over time to reflect the underlying supply and demand for allowances. In this paper, I develop a simple theory that relates the initial clearing price of CO2 allowances to the marginal cost premium of carbon-free technology, the maximum rate of energy capital replacement and the market interest rate. This theory suggests that the initial clearing price may be lower than the canonical range of CO2 prices found in static technology assessments. Consequently, these results have broad implications for the design of a comprehensive regulatory solution to the climate problem, providing, for example, some intuition about the proper value of a possible CO2 price trigger in a future cap-and-trade system.
Topic:
Climate Change, Economics, Environment, and Markets
An attempt to summarise the state of knowledge about social and economic challenges related to climate change, for example based on the latest IPCC reports, would probably give the impression that impacts, adaptation and vulnerability are a question of interactions between people and institutions within small local communities (IPCC, 2007a), whereas mitigation can be addressed by political analyses and economics (IPCC, 2007b). In most economic studies, the motivation behind mitigation is presented as that of limiting greenhouse gas emissions to a given target
The EU emissions trading scheme (EU ETS) is designed to help EU member states achieve their commitments to limit or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a cost-effective way. It was not meant to work as a stand-alone tool but as part of the package of abatement measures across the board. It is a cap-and-trade system. Member states first impose caps on GHG emissions – initially only CO2 until 2012 – from installations in specified sectors, mainly the power sector and industry subsectors (e.g. steel, cement, glass, paper and pulp). Emissions from these sectors amount to 40% of total EU emissions. Next, they allocate allowances to installations. Each installation surrenders a number of allowances equal to the total emissions from that installation during the preceding year.
For small financially active countries the exchange rate assumes particular importance, not only as a shock absorber, but potentially also as a source of shocks during financial market crises. This is very much in evidence today in the case of Iceland which is being hit hard by the recent turbulence in financial markets.
Stefano Micossi, Maria Teresa Salvemini, and Alfonso Iozzo
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for European Policy Studies
Abstract:
The present budget of the European Union has long ceased to represent European policy priorities; it is the result of decisions taken decades ago and subsequent incremental adjustments decided under the pressure of external events or for political expediency. Its increasing detachment from emerging needs and policy priorities undermines support for the Union among public opinion.