scholarly journals Systematization and Classification of the European Union’s policy Instruments for the Implementation of the Green Dealсис

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 30-56
Author(s):  
Irina Popova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Administrative Costs ◽  
Carbon Regulation ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Environmental Transformation

In 2019, the new European Commission (EC) presented its vision for climate and environmental transformation in Europe and beyond in its communication on the Green Deal. The Green Deal covers all sectors of the economy, elaborates a new concept for economic growth with climate goals at its centre, and implies a review of current EU climate and climate-related policies. An analysis of the instruments for the Green Deal’s implementation and internationalization and their classification and systematization shows a wider picture of the whole complex of available and suggested new policy tools. It also clarifies the role of each of the initiatives and assesses more precisely their importance and potential for influencing the global climate agenda and relations with the Russian Federation. The analysis further reveals the balance of costs and benefits for the sectors and actors involved. The purpose of this study is to systematize the complex of the Green Deal’s implementation instruments and assess the balance of various measures in the EU’s menu of policy options. The EU’s influence on the global agenda and the interests of other countries, including Russia, is not limited to the introduction of the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), which was widely covered and analyzed as a never before applied trade and climate policy tool with potential to influence global competition. Upcoming new rules to enter the European market, including through sustainable product requirements, could affect the interests of other countries even more. This influence will also be amplified by the regulatory frameworks and rules on emerging markets, such as for climate-neutral technologies and energy sources. Analysis of the initiatives suggests that the measures may be quite burdensome, especially for citizens, while the system of redistribution and compensation is not yet sufficiently developed in terms of financing and administration. Some initiatives significantly increase the transaction and administrative costs for all market participants (exporters, importers, European companies, and consumers) with fairly limited emissions reductions on a global scale. Despite these drawbacks, the Green Deal remains the most comprehensive, elaborate, detailed and ambitious initiative aimed at reaching the net-zero target. Other actors have their own reasoning for tougher climate policy, but the influence and pressure of the Deal increases the ambition of their goals and encourages them to consider the implementation of various policy options, including strict carbon regulation. Therefore, the new EU policy could become a model to identify the best solutions and practices, as well as a catalyst for global climate transition.

Carbon rentals and silvicultural subsidies for private forests as climate policy instruments

2007 ◽  
Vol 37 (12) ◽  
pp. 2541-2551 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jussi Uusivuori ◽  
Jani Laturi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Policy ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Policy Options ◽  
Managed Forests ◽  
Private Forests ◽  
Age Class ◽  
The Government ◽  
Privately Owned

A forest model with an endogenous growth description and age-class structure is applied to study the impacts of potential climate policy instruments on the carbon services of privately owned and managed forests. The model describes the behaviour of a utility-maximizing private nonindustrial landowner who optimizes consumption flow, harvest timing, and the intertemporal allocation of silvicultural investments. Two policy options, one in which the landowner is granted periodic carbon rental payments and one in which the government subsidizes the costs of silvicultural investments, are studied. The rules for when the policy measures have both intended and unintended effects are derived. Using numerical examples, we demonstrate that the effectiveness of both policy options depends on the age-class structure of forests when future carbon benefits are discounted. In that case, carbon rental payments are more effective for forests with old age-class structures, while silvicultural subsidies are more effective for forests with young age-class structures.

scholarly journals The EU’s Policies for the Green Deal Internationalization

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-160
Author(s):  
Marina Larionova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Emission Trading ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Global Public Good ◽  
Foreign Direct Investments ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Normative Documents

The European Union (EU) aspires to become a global climate power. Climate neutrality became the guiding principle, the goal, and the pillar of the EU’s external policy after the Green Deal endorsement. The Green Deal is internationalized through a system of external policy instruments, including financial, trade and investment mechanisms, carbon border adjustment and emission trading, agreements with other countries, development support, and promotion of the EU’s regulation and standards through cooperation in international institutions. The normative documents and proposals on the key initiatives have been put forward, and the formats and plans for implementation are being discussed and defined. In this context, it is important to analyze the EU’s initiatives for internationalization of green transformation goals and to identify risks and opportunities related to their implementation. This article reviews the array of external policy instruments and initiatives deployed by the EU: the new trade policy of “open strategic autonomy” and the initiative on trade and sustainable development in the World Trade Organization (WTO); the framework for the screening of foreign direct investments and the taxonomy of environmentally sustainable investment and economic activity; new approaches to energy security and the building of global energy markets, including norms and standards for hydrogen markets; and the new neighbourhood policy, including the new strategy for Central Asia and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument. Given the initial stage of the initiative’s implementation, the study focuses on the adopted documents and planned actions. The author assesses the potential impact of climate policy internationalization instruments on EU-Russia economic cooperation and on EU leadership in shaping global climate governance. The author asserts that a number of instruments bear risks for the Russian Federation’s economic projects and proposes recommendations for abating them. With regard to global governance, the EU’s commitment to integrate climate goals into the global agenda may serve as a bridge for inclusive governance. At the same time, the EU’s determination to impose its priorities through carrot and stick incentives, including through economic measures, on partners not sharing the EU’s approach may be destructive. The author concludes that the EU’s capacity to build constructive engagement with partners will be a test of the EU’s real leadership. Given that the Green Deal’s external dimension is intended not only to promote EU priorities and values, but also to advance the global public good, controversies arise with regard to the instruments, not the goals. Thus, it is in the interests of Russia, as well as other partners directly affected, not to oppose the export of the EU’s climate policy, but to cooperate to mitigate unintended consequences of its deployment and to shape inclusive global governance.

scholarly journals The EU ETS Top Ten Polluters List as a Policy Tool of Climate Action Organisations

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 201
Author(s):  
Andrei Zimakov
Keyword(s):  
Climate Policy ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Eu Ets ◽  
Common Reference ◽  
Policy Tool ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Eu

The EU ETS is one of the most important EC instruments to curb CO2 emissions. Various climate action organisations use verified emissions data from EU ETS to calculate top EU polluters lists. These shortlists are actively used in their advocacy strategies as an evidence of national or EU-wide climate policies (under)performance to influence policymaking. However, there is no official EU ETS top ten list released by the EC what weakens the political power of this tool. Addressing possible reasons for EC’s reluctance the paper investigates the correlation between the presence of national enterprises in the EU ETS top ten list and the national climate policy actions over 2008-2019 timeframe. Despite different limitations, the EU ETS top ten is adequately reflecting main developments in national efforts to curb GHG emissions and is pointing out underperforming countries and industries covered by the EU ETS. In the variety of hard and soft EU climate policy instruments, the EU ETS top ten polluters list could feature as an information tool. It is especially important for climate action organizations, providing them with an officially released rating as a common reference point that they could use in their evaluations and political campaigns.

scholarly journals Integrated assessment of climate change: state of the literature

2014 ◽  
Vol 5 (03) ◽  
pp. 377-409 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Weyant
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Change Policy ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Carbon Policy ◽  
Benefit Cost Analysis ◽  
Regulatory Processes ◽  
Order Of Magnitude

Abstract: This paper reviews applications of benefit-cost analysis (BCA) in climate policy assessment at the US national and global scales. Two different but related major application types are addressed. First there are global-scale analyses that focus on calculating optimal global carbon emissions trajectories and carbon prices that maximize global welfare. The second application is the use of the same tools to compute the social cost of carbon (SCC) for use in US regulatory processes. The SCC is defined as the climate damages attributable to an increase of one metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions above a baseline emissions trajectory that assumes no new climate policies. The paper describes the three main quantitative models that have been used in the optimal carbon policy and SCC calculations and then summarizes the range of results that have been produced using them. The results span an extremely broad range (up to an order of magnitude) across modeling platforms as well as across the plausible ranges of input assumptions to a single model. This broad range of results sets the stage for a discussion of the five key challenges that face BCA practitioners participating in the national and global climate change policy analysis arenas: (1) including the possibility of catastrophic outcomes; (2) factoring in equity and income distribution considerations; (3) addressing intertemporal discounting and intergenerational equity; (4) projecting baseline demographics, technological change, and policies inside and outside the energy sector; and (5) characterizing the full set of uncertainties to be dealt with and designing a decision-making process that updates and adapts new scientific and economic information into that process in a timely and productive manner. The paper closes by describing how the BCA models have been useful in climate policy discussions to date despite the uncertainties that pervade the results that have been produced.

scholarly journals Global Climate Services: A Typology of Global Decisions Influenced by Climate Risk

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bisaro ◽  
Jochen Hinkel ◽  
Gonéri Le Cozannet ◽  
Thomas van der Pol ◽  
Armin Haas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Policy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Climate Risk ◽  
Service Development ◽  
Policy Decisions ◽  
Climate Services ◽  
Portfolio Decisions ◽  
Climate Risks ◽  
Climate Service

Climate services are ideally co-developed by scientists and stakeholders working together to identify decisions and user needs. Yet, while climate services have been developed at regional to local scales, relatively little attention has been paid to the global scale. Global climate services involve decisions that rely on climate information from many locations in different world regions, and are increasingly salient. Increasing interconnections in the global financial system and supply chains expose private companies and financial institutions to climate risk in multiple locations in different world regions. Further, multilateral decisions on greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, disaster risk finance or international migration should make use of global scale climate risk assessments. In order to advance global climate service development, we present a typology of decisions relying on global (i.e., non-local) climate risk information. We illustrate each decision type through examples of current practice from the coastal domain drawn from the literature and stakeholder interviews. We identify 8 types of decisions making use of global climate information. At a top-level, we distinguish between “multilateral climate policy decisions,” and “portfolio decisions involving multiple locations.” Multilateral climate policy decisions regard either “mitigation targets” or “multilateral adaptation” decisions. Portfolio decisions regard either “choice of location” or “choice of financial asset” decisions. Choice of location decisions can be further distinguished as to whether they involve “direct climate risks,” “supply chain risks” or “financial network risks.” Our survey of examples shows that global climate service development is more advanced for portfolio decisions taken by companies with experience in climate risk assessment, i.e., (re-)insurers, whereas many multilateral climate policy decisions are at an earlier stage of decision-making. Our typology thus provides an entry-point for global climate service development by pointing to promising research directions for supporting global (non-local) decisions that account for climate risks.

scholarly journals Reduced resilience of terrestrial ecosystems locally is not reflected on a global scale

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhao Feng ◽  
Haojie Su ◽  
Zhiyao Tang ◽  
Shaopeng Wang ◽  
Xia Zhao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecological Resilience ◽  
Terrestrial Vegetation ◽  
Ecosystem Resilience

AbstractGlobal climate change likely alters the structure and function of vegetation and the stability of terrestrial ecosystems. It is therefore important to assess the factors controlling ecosystem resilience from local to global scales. Here we assess terrestrial vegetation resilience over the past 35 years using early warning indicators calculated from normalized difference vegetation index data. On a local scale we find that climate change reduced the resilience of ecosystems in 64.5% of the global terrestrial vegetated area. Temperature had a greater influence on vegetation resilience than precipitation, while climate mean state had a greater influence than climate variability. However, there is no evidence for decreased ecological resilience on larger scales. Instead, climate warming increased spatial asynchrony of vegetation which buffered the global-scale impacts on resilience. We suggest that the response of terrestrial ecosystem resilience to global climate change is scale-dependent and influenced by spatial asynchrony on the global scale.

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