scholarly journals Macroeconomic and Financial Policies for Climate Change Mitigation

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (185) ◽  
Author(s):  
Signe Krogstrup ◽  
William Oman

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of this century. Mitigation requires a large-scale transition to a low-carbon economy. This paper provides an overview of the rapidly growing literature on the role of macroeconomic and financial policy tools in enabling this transition. The literature provides a menu of policy tools for mitigation. A key conclusion is that fiscal tools are first in line and central, but can and may need to be complemented by financial and monetary policy instruments. Some tools and policies raise unanswered questions about policy tool assignment and mandates, which we describe. The literature is scarce, however, on the most effective policy mix and the role of mitigation tools and goals in the overall policy framework.

2012 ◽  
Vol 03 (04) ◽  
pp. 1250025 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM B. JAFFE

There is a strong foundation in theoretical and empirical research in economics for the proposition that efficient climate policy must include both carbon-price policy and technology policy. Even the most modest projections of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reductions needed to moderate climate change imply very large reductions in the carbon-intensity of the world economy, something in excess of a 60% reduction by 2050. This is a greater proportionate reduction than has occurred in the petroleum intensity of world GDP since 1970, despite a six-fold increase in the price of oil. This illustrates how unlikely it is that the needed economic transformation could be brought about by price-based policy instruments alone. There is no good historical analogue to the needed transformation, but the closest parallels all involved major roles for technology policy. Increased public funding of research and training is a necessary but not sufficient component of such policy. Historical experience with technological transformation in other sectors suggests that government support for purchases of low-carbon technologies will be needed. Unfortunately, we do not have good evidence on efficient design of such programs. We need systematic evaluation of different policy instruments designed to accelerate the transformation of basic technologies into large-scale commercial products. We have the "technology" to do this kind of systematic evaluation, but it is not generally used.


2012 ◽  
Vol 524-527 ◽  
pp. 2356-2359
Author(s):  
Shu Bin Jiang ◽  
Jun Jie Xu

Global warming is one of the problems paid close attention extensively in the world today. Meanwhile, the development of the world economy demands more and more oil, coal and other energy, which results in an unceasing increase of greenhouse gas emissions and intensifies the climate change. The development of the low-carbon economy has become an important means to address climate change issues to a country, and the carbon tax is an important approach to achieve the development of the low-carbon economy. This paper is based on the perspective of the low-carbon economy, starting from the role of the tax on the economy to study the role of the tax on the low-carbon economy, and ultimately to design the implementation of the tax .


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Knight-Lenihan ◽  
Kate Scanlen

Like many countries, New Zealand is grappling with how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while adapting to climate change. We are working through a Zero Carbon Bill and the implications of transitioning to a low-carbon economy. The country is being told it needs a more co-ordinated and effective way to prepare for climate change impacts, as local government is formulating adaptation and mitigation strategies in an uncertain and, as discussed below, at times confusing legal and policy framework. Potentially helpful is a concept evolving internationally, climatecompatible development. This promotes the idea of explicitly combining strategies and policies for emissions reductions and adaptation initiatives while enabling improvements in human wellbeing. This article explores the usefulness of such a concept for New Zealand.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 201-221
Author(s):  
Olena Shevchenko

Addressing global climate change brings up a number of priority issues. The fundamental issue is the definition of the participants in this process and the scope of their competencies and areas of responsibility. Practice shows that modern global challenges, which include global climate change, cannot be solved individually and in a straightforward manner without the involvement of all stakeholders and the general public. The article discusses actions aimed at adapting and mitigating the consequences of global climate challenges carried out by states and their alliances (as traditional international actors) and corporations and media (as new international actors). It is shown that today state political decisions on the adaptation to and mitigation of the consequences of global climate change are associated, in particular, with the transition to a low-carbon economy. At the same time, specific and effective climate policies are also being implemented by international corporations. Global media implement their own climate initiatives from one side and shape international public opinion regarding the climate challenge from the other side. The author concludes that, despite the active presence of the theme of global climate change in international and national political discourse, as well as in media and in the social and economic projects of corporations, the general attempts to resolve the issue can’t be considered as a well coordinated, and the results are not efficient enough.


Author(s):  
Muntasir Murshed ◽  
Zahoor Ahmed ◽  
Md Shabbir Alam ◽  
Haider Mahmood ◽  
Abdul Rehman ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 961-973 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Simonson ◽  
P. Ruiz-Benito ◽  
F. Valladares ◽  
D. Coomes

Abstract. Woodlands represent highly significant carbon sinks globally, though could lose this function under future climatic change. Effective large-scale monitoring of these woodlands has a critical role to play in mitigating for, and adapting to, climate change. Mediterranean woodlands have low carbon densities, but represent important global carbon stocks due to their extensiveness and are particularly vulnerable because the region is predicted to become much hotter and drier over the coming century. Airborne lidar is already recognized as an excellent approach for high-fidelity carbon mapping, but few studies have used multi-temporal lidar surveys to measure carbon fluxes in forests and none have worked with Mediterranean woodlands. We use a multi-temporal (5-year interval) airborne lidar data set for a region of central Spain to estimate above-ground biomass (AGB) and carbon dynamics in typical mixed broadleaved and/or coniferous Mediterranean woodlands. Field calibration of the lidar data enabled the generation of grid-based maps of AGB for 2006 and 2011, and the resulting AGB change was estimated. There was a close agreement between the lidar-based AGB growth estimate (1.22 Mg ha−1 yr−1) and those derived from two independent sources: the Spanish National Forest Inventory, and a tree-ring based analysis (1.19 and 1.13 Mg ha−1 yr−1, respectively). We parameterised a simple simulator of forest dynamics using the lidar carbon flux measurements, and used it to explore four scenarios of fire occurrence. Under undisturbed conditions (no fire) an accelerating accumulation of biomass and carbon is evident over the next 100 years with an average carbon sequestration rate of 1.95 Mg C ha−1 yr−1. This rate reduces by almost a third when fire probability is increased to 0.01 (fire return rate of 100 years), as has been predicted under climate change. Our work shows the power of multi-temporal lidar surveying to map woodland carbon fluxes and provide parameters for carbon dynamics models. Space deployment of lidar instruments in the near future could open the way for rolling out wide-scale forest carbon stock monitoring to inform management and governance responses to future environmental change.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W.N. Steenberg ◽  
Peter N. Duinker ◽  
Irena F. Creed ◽  
Jacqueline N. Serran ◽  
Camille Ouellet Dallaire

In response to global climate change, Canada is transitioning towards a low-carbon economy and the need for policy approaches that are effective, equitable, coordinated, and both administratively and politically feasible is high. One point is clear; the transition is intimately tied to the vast supply of ecosystem services in the boreal zone of Canada. This paper describes four contrasting futures for the boreal zone using scenario analysis, which is a transdisciplinary, participatory approach that considers alternative futures and policy implications under conditions of high uncertainty and complexity. The two critical forces shaping the four scenarios are the global economy’s energy and society’s capacity to adapt. The six drivers of change are atmospheric change, the demand for provisioning ecosystem services, the demand for nonprovisioning ecosystem services, demographics, and social values, governance and geopolitics, and industrial innovation and infrastructure. The four scenarios include: (i) the Green Path, where a low-carbon economy is coupled with high adaptive capacity; (ii) the Uphill Climb, where a low-carbon economy is instead coupled with low adaptive capacity; (iii) the Carpool Lane, where society has a strong capacity to adapt but a reliance on fossil fuels; and (iv) the Slippery Slope, where there is both a high-carbon economy and a society with low adaptive capacity. The scenarios illustrate the importance of transitioning to a low-carbon economy and the role of society’s adaptive capacity in doing so. However, they also emphasize themes like social inequality and adverse environmental outcomes arising from the push towards climate change mitigation.


Author(s):  
Joseph Nyangon

The Paris Agreement on climate change requires nations to keep the global temperature within the 2°C carbon budget. Achieving this temperature target means stranding more than 80% of all proven fossil energy reserves as well as resulting in investments in such resources becoming stranded assets. At the implementation level, governments are experiencing technical, economic, and legal challenges in transitioning their economies to meet the 2°C temperature commitment through the nationally determined contributions (NDCs), let alone striving for the 1.5°C carbon budget, which translates into greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) gap. This chapter focuses on tackling the risks of stranded electricity assets using machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. Stranded assets are not new in the energy sector; the physical impacts of climate change and the transition to a low-carbon economy have generally rendered redundant or obsolete electricity generation and storage assets. Low-carbon electricity systems, which come in variable and controllable forms, are essential to mitigating climate change. These systems present distinct opportunities for machine learning and artificial intelligence-powered techniques. This chapter considers the background to these issues. It discusses the asset stranding discourse and its implications to the energy sector and related infrastructure. The chapter concludes by outlining an interdisciplinary research agenda for mitigating the risks of stranded assets in electricity investments.


2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Heine ◽  
Willi Semmler ◽  
Mariana Mazzucato ◽  
João Paulo Braga ◽  
Michael Flaherty ◽  
...  

Summary: To finance the transition to low-carbon economies required to mitigate climate change, countries are increasingly using a combination of carbon pricing and green bonds. This paper studies the reasoning behind such policy mixes and the economic interaction effects that result from these different policy instruments. We model these interactions using an intertemporal model, related to Sachs (2015), which proposes a burden sharing between current and future generations. The issuance of green bonds helps to enable immediate investment in climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the bonds would be repaid by future generations in such a way that those who benefit from reduced future environmental damage share in the burden of financing mitigation efforts undertaken today. We examine the effects of combining green bonds and carbon pricing in a three-phase model. We are using a numerical solution procedure which allows for finite-horizon solutions and phase changes. We show that green bonds perform better when they are combined with carbon pricing. Our proposed policy option appears to be politically more feasible than a green transition based only on carbon pricing and is more prudent for debt sustainability than a green transition that relies overly on green bonds.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulina Szyja

Since the crisis of the real economy in 2008, an intense discussion about the need for changes in the economy, supported by a number of declarations on the global scale, has been developed. The analysis of the causes and effects of the economic downturn and the challenges of the future have had a huge impact on this state of affairs. As a result, some states have taken action to remedy the situation. Many of them were aimed at structural changes in production, consumption and environmentally friendly investment. At the same time, the concept of "low carbon economy" and "green economy" gained importance. The aim of this paper is to present the role of the state in the economy in terms of creating conditions for a green economy. The thesis of the publication is: implementation of structural changes related with creating a green economy requires involvement of the state.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document