Risks, Lessons Learned, and Secondary Markets for Greenhouse Gas Reductions


Book Description

Emissions trading could significantly reduce the costs of limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Complementary domestic policies to reduce fragmentation in evolving secondary markets, establish clear baselines and procedures, and strengthen host-country institutions could further reduce the risks and costs of emission limits.Collectively or individually, countries are likely to implement policies designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Experience from tradable quota schemes suggests that emissions trading could significantly reduce the costs of emission limits.The Kyoto Protocol provides the framework for a common trading mechanism for all countries - including countries that would not face immediate emission limits. Significantly, the Protocol places the responsibility for meeting emission limits with national governments.How policymakers choose to implement emission limits will significantly shape the incentives that drive evolving secondary markets for greenhouse-gas-based instruments. Potential market participants who were surveyed rate policy - related risk as higher than business-related risks. Domestic policies designed to reduce fragmentation in secondary markets, establish clear baselines and procedures, and strengthen host-country institutions can all help reduce the risks and costs of emission limits.This paper - a product of the Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to support more cost-effective environmental regulations. Donald Larson may be contacted at [email protected].




Climate Change and Financial Markets


Book Description

An economy-wide cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) would create a large new financial market. Unlike other markets that typically evolve over time, a national GHG cap-and-trade system would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars at the outset. A market of this size requires attention to both the market risks and the political risks associated with the design and operation of a new financial market. Congress has the opportunity to guide the development of the market, incorporating best practices in market regulation and building on lessons learned from recent market failures. The paper provides an overview of the key issues in the current carbon market debate and the larger market reform measures, describes the evolution of securities and commodities market regulation, identifies aspects of a carbon market that may require unique regulatory approaches, and discusses the three approaches to carbon market oversight, including: 1. Designing a market structure specifically tailored to the carbon market; 2. Using the existing CEA but creating specific tweaks for carbon; and 3. Defining carbon allowances as commodities under the CEA without specific provisions for carbon trading.




Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies


Book Description

These proceedings contain 270 papers outlining ideas and contributions to the new scientific, technical and political discipline of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Control. The contributions were presented at the 4th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies (GHGT-4). It was the largest gathering of experts active in this new and fast-developing field.GHGT-4 was different from its predecessors in that it included all greenhouse gases, not only CO2, and all issues which could contribute to the mitigation of the greenhouse problem - technical, economic and political. The main focus was on practical solutions and real demonstrations of mitigation technology being planned and implemented today. It also addressed ways to increase the efficiency of power production and utilisation, and looked at proposals to encourage the development of renewable energy sources.During the Opening Session, 10 keynote addresses were heard from prominent personalities in government, industry and academia. To tackle this very inter-disciplinary problem and to achieve acceptable solutions, it is essential for industry and government to initiate intense dialogue and cooperation. Conferences like this can provide the opportunity for a meeting of minds between engineers and politicians in the face of global challenge. The primary attributes of this global challenge are manifold: the problem is global and international; it is inter-disciplinary, both in substance and approach; it covers technical, political and economic issues and involves government, science, industry and academia; it is complex and non-linear; and it will take the efforts of all parties involved to solve the problem.These proceedings contain ideas for starting demonstration projects and for making better use of the power and flexibility of market measures. They also show it is a problem we can influence and that there is a wealth of ideas. The challenge now is to find the right partners to put these ideas into action.




Managing Climate Risk in the U.S. Financial System


Book Description

This publication serves as a roadmap for exploring and managing climate risk in the U.S. financial system. It is the first major climate publication by a U.S. financial regulator. The central message is that U.S. financial regulators must recognize that climate change poses serious emerging risks to the U.S. financial system, and they should move urgently and decisively to measure, understand, and address these risks. Achieving this goal calls for strengthening regulators’ capabilities, expertise, and data and tools to better monitor, analyze, and quantify climate risks. It calls for working closely with the private sector to ensure that financial institutions and market participants do the same. And it calls for policy and regulatory choices that are flexible, open-ended, and adaptable to new information about climate change and its risks, based on close and iterative dialogue with the private sector. At the same time, the financial community should not simply be reactive—it should provide solutions. Regulators should recognize that the financial system can itself be a catalyst for investments that accelerate economic resilience and the transition to a net-zero emissions economy. Financial innovations, in the form of new financial products, services, and technologies, can help the U.S. economy better manage climate risk and help channel more capital into technologies essential for the transition. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5247742




The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)


Book Description

Following the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, countries took up the difficult task of finding a common approach that would slow down the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere and delay changes to the planet''s climate. A widespread concern among many of the participants in the newly formed United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was that the emission reductions needed to significantly affect climate change would cost so much that it could jeopardize the chances of a coordinated international solution. To address this concern, several flexible mechanisms were designed, including the CDM.While many applaud the CDM, others are concerned with its performance and achievements, and whether or not it will be continued beyond 2012. Critics argue, among other things, that it has not delivered on the sustainable development objective for which it was established and that projects are unevenly distributed, both geographically and sectorally.Much analysis is available on CDM, but very little comprehensive analysis, addressing various aspects of CDM is available. With a major decision for its continuation, a multi-dimensional analysis would be needed. This book is about the economic assessment of certain (not certain) CDM performances, and its future sustainability and trajectory.




Risky Business


Book Description

This report identifies three risk-management principles as particularly pertinent to greenhouse gas emissions rights: establishing transparency and disclosure rules; properly sequencing regulatory policies; and avoiding perverse incentives that result in excessive risk taking.




Energy Derivatives


Book Description

The new finanacial markets for energy trading are growing globally. Financial derivatives now influence energy price formation for oil, gas and electricity. The power of the Internet is driving these global changes more rapidly and adding more price volatility. This book is the second of three books on energy trading and risk management written by best selling author Peter C. Fusaro. It covers the key new markets of emissions trading, weather driving, electronic energy trading, bandwidth trading and electricty and gas trading in Europe.







The Relative Effects of Skill Formation and Job Matching on Wage Growth in Ethiopia


Book Description

Abstract: April 1999 - Estimated age and job seniority profiles of wages and marginal productivity in Ethiopia suggest that both skill formation and job matching significantly affect growth of wages and productivity over time. However, job matching is by far the more important of the two sources of growth in wages and productivity. Mengistae analyzes production and labor market data for a random selection of small to medium-size firms in Ethiopia to answer two questions: Does a worker's marginal productivity increase with time in the labor market or with job seniority, as must be the case if on-the-job skill formation or job matching has anything to do with the dynamics of wages observed in the data? Assuming that marginal productivity grows with experience or seniority, is skill formation more or less important than job matching as a source of growth in productivity? The main feature of Mengistae's analysis is the joint regression of the log of the average product of hours in a firm and the log of average hourly earnings of a firm's employees on the shares of experience-seniority cells of workers in total annual hours in the firm. Marginal productivity falls as experience in the labor market passes the 15-year mark, but the expected marginal product of a mobile worker with 16 or more years of experience is still nearly 80 percent higher than that of the base group. The between-jobs growth of hourly wages with potential experience is also large, but not as large as growth in marginal productivity for workers with less than 15 years of experience. Mengistae concludes that job matching is far more important than skill formation as a source of growth in productivity. Net mobility gains account for at least twice the share of the return to skill formation in the observed between-jobs growth of wages with market experience. The rate of return to skills formation is higher in the United States than in Ethiopia. The relative return to skills formation is probably lower in Ethiopia partly because the flow of information about the labor market is more restricted there. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to identify firm-level sources of growth in productivity. The author may be contacted at [email protected].