Green growth in the post-Copenhagen climate

International Journal of Green Economics, 2009

This paper introduces this special issue on the 'Economics of climate change' and describes contemporary policy attitudes in the economics of climate change, it explores features and differences in some examples from a variety of economic policy approaches in the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference. These include market based incentives, technological innovations, de-carbonisation and natural resource accounting as well as proposing that life style changes are necessary. The paper explains the significance of reaching agreement at the Copenhagen Conference and critiques some of the policies being suggested, (mainly in Europe) and some neo-liberal approaches to the economics of climate change. It puts forward a set of Green Economics policy ideas which are holistic, complex and multidisciplinary and take a longer term perspective.

Economic & Political Weekly, 2009

As the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol comes to a close in 2012, the world faces another decision point at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen in December. It is clear that total world emissions of greenhouse gases need to decrease sometime during the coming decade, and fall sharply thereafter, if we are to avoid disastrous and irreversible climate change. While industrialised countries generally emit much more per capita than developing countries, some of the latter have per capita emissions approaching the world average. This paper proposes that these advanced developing countries take on commitments to limit future emissions increase to improvements in the gross domestic product or, better yet, the Human Development Index, noting that some countries have achieved much more emission-efficient development than others. Recognising differences in the accuracy of greenhouse gas emissions accounting, we propose separate treatment for energy-related co2 emissions, forestry, agriculture, and fluorinated gases.

In this paper we investigate the trade-offs between economic growth and low carbon targets for both developing and developed countries for the period to 2035. The issues examined include the assessment of abatement costs related to two policy options for being on track to meet the 450 PPM target: (a) national targets without international trade in carbon permits and (b) a global market in permits. Policy options are evaluated with an original version of the dynamic CGE model GDynE. The model focuses on bilateral trade flows and links between economies and

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Greening the WTO, 2016

Even though the COP21 meeting in Paris concluded on a positive note, the implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures remains based on non- binding proposals and promises made by the countries who took part in COP21. In addition, the solutions discussed so far are based on the assumption and hope that new technologies will be developed that can help generate the needed abatement of Green House Gases (GHG) and that such new technology could be developed, sold and used based on “business as usual” in regard to protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). This publication proposes instead an alternative way to halt climate warming. The author suggests that the treaty power of the WTO could be used to create the incentive system needed to transform “business as usual- IPR” to a “green oriented trade and development system” turning green high technology into a common resource that could give low-income developing countries access to green high technology goods and services which would enable them to contribute to the effort of stopping global warming at a global level. To set the theoretical frame for a new approach towards a climate reduction strategy, the author introduces the public goods versus common resources conceptions of the economy including a discussion of the relevance of solidarity economy concepts for a global implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies. Finally, this publication proposes three green agreements within the WTO agreement framework. The three green WTO agreements proposed could generate the green investments and green production needed to successfully implement climate change mitigation and adaptation at global level and in the public interest. Key words: Climate Change, Public Goods, Global Public Goods, Green Technology, Green Goods and Services, TRIMS, TRIPS, WTO, UNFCCC, SSE, mutual supportiveness

Climate change is a serious threat to all nations. This raises the question of why continuous treaty negotiations for more than two decades have failed to create a viable or adequate international climate regime. The current strategy of addressing climate change misdiagnoses the issue as a pollution problem by focusing on symptoms (emissions) and not on underlying causes (unsustainable development). In short, the wrong treaty is being negotiated. Drawing on negotiation analysis, it is argued that the existing and proposed climate treaties fail to meet the national interests of any party. An alternative strategy for addressing climate change is proposed that reframes the overall approach to reflect all countries’ development needs and links climate protection goals to the development structure of the treaty. The current deadlock over emissions reductions might be overcome and a mutual gains agreement reached by directing international cooperation towards promoting the provision of clean energy services for development and ensuring universal access to those services as part of an ‘early action’ agenda that will complement efforts to utilize forests and reduce other GHGs from multiple sectors.

London: Overseas Development Institute, 2009

Systems, 2018

This report describes the Integrated Assessment Model TIAM-MACRO, which is a Ramsey-type macroeconomic growth model linked with a technology-rich engineering model of the energy-system and with a stylized sub-model of climate change. TIAM-MACRO contributes to coherent and consistent policy analyses at both the world and regional level and correlates demand for energy services to macroeconomic developments across regions and time until the end of the 21st century. With the help of this model, two contrasting scenarios are defined related to the reference development (BASE) case and the 2 • C (2DS) case that follow long-term policies on climatic change mitigation in the spirit of the Paris agreement. Finally, we define ex-post market and non-market damages together with the damages related to Local Atmospheric Pollutants (LAP). The stringency of the 2DS case requires the complete restructuring of the energy and transport systems to be relying on carbon-free technologies and fuels together with technologies of negative emissions, at high costs. The study concludes that carbon policies not only consist of an insurance against the risk of climate change but also improve the ambient air quality, as they have secondary benefits that compensate for part of the cost of carbon control. However, the stringency of the 2DS case is so demanding that the cost of climate policies is above benefits.