Enforcement and price controls in emissions trading

This paper examines how enforcement affects the structure and performance of emissions trading programs with price controls under uncertainty about firms' abatement costs. The analysis highlights how an enforcement strategy can cause abatement-cost risk to be transmitted to enforcement costs via the price of permits. When this occurs, accommodating the effect of abatement-cost risk with an optimal policy results in higher expected emissions and lower expected permit price than their second-best optimal values. However, it is possible to design an enforcement strategy that shields enforcement costs from abatement-cost risk by tying sanctions directly to permit prices. This enforcement strategy stabilizes enforcement effort, the optimal permit supply and price controls are independent of enforcement costs, and the policy produces the second-best optimal outcome.     

郑州市地下水自备井计划用水交易市场设计

根据水权交易市场建设的基本要求,文章设计了郑州市地下水自备井计划用水交易市场,并对相关的水资源管理制度改革提出了建议。郑州市地下水自备井计划用水交易市场首先需要明晰初始水权、实施总量控制和完善监测计量系统;然后建立相应的市场交易制度,包括年度用水计划制定、跨年度用水指标使用、交易产品选择、交易周期选择、交易价格生成和网上在线交易系统建设等。在建立水权交易市场以后,还需要对现有的水资源管理制度进行改革,包括新水权发放、生态与环境影响评价、市场信息公布、现有的用水计划制定和超计划累进加价制度改革等。     

天津市排污权交易评估与分析

在简要介绍天津市排污权交易试点的开展历程与现状的基础上,对天津市排污交易试点进行了评估。分析了排污交易试点过程中存在的主要问题,即排污权交易难以为环境管理服务,其执行状况与实施初衷不完全相符,基础数据的现状尚不支持交易的有效进行,交易跟踪系统尚不健全,初始排污权分配技术方法不成熟。针对以上问题,对＂十二五＂期间天津市排污交易试点开展提出了建议。     

中国实现碳达峰的政策建议——基于碳定价机制模型的多情景模拟分析

碳定价机制是利用市场机制推动碳减排、减缓气候变化方案的核心内容,包括碳排放权交易和碳税等措施。尽管新冠肺炎疫情打乱了经济发展节奏,但是中国主动提高国家自主贡献力度,积极推进战略提升与政策强化。本研究构建并运用"碳定价机制模型"模拟涵盖不同主体范围及政策组合下的碳排放权交易市场运行情况,分析评估碳减排效果及经济影响,为丰富完善我国实现碳达峰的政策工具提供技术支持。     

施用高效氮肥对农田N2O的减排效果及经济效益分析

收集高效氮肥N2O排放资料,利用整合分析法分析高效氮肥对N2O的减排效果.稳定性氮肥排放的N2O是普通肥料的0.66倍,减排效果显著;包膜缓释氮肥N2O排放量为普通氮肥的0.95倍,无显著减排效果.若将全国范围的普通氮肥替换为稳定性氮肥、且用N量不变时,稳定性氮肥在中国农田的N2O减排潜力均值为1.03×108 kgN/a,碳排放交易收入为16.86亿元/a;根据现有市场上稳定性氮肥的价格,每亩地每季补贴4.9元,碳排放交易收入和稳定性氮肥成本增加量相抵.由于稳定性氮肥能有效提高N利用率,保证农作物吸N总量不变时减少用N量,稳定性肥料N利用率提高8个百分点时,N2O减排经济效益(即碳排放交易收入-稳定性氮肥成本增加量)为94亿元/a.     

Carbon neutral Biggar: calculating the community carbon footprint and renewable energy options for footprint reduction

The objective of this research was to develop a community carbon footprint model that could be used to assess the size and major components of a community’s carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. The town of Biggar aims to become Scotland’s first carbon neutral town. As expected for this rural community, car transport accounted for nearly half of the CO₂ emissions, with natural gas and electricity consumption resulting in a further 24% and 12% of total emissions, respectively, and air travel being the last major component at 10% of emissions. An assessment was also made of the wind and solar resources of the town. One large wind turbine would provide the town’s electricity, while three to four turbines would be needed to offset all CO₂ emissions. In contrast, offsetting by tree planting would require in the region of 2,000 ha of trees.

Application of Tradable Emission Permits in Europe

Abstract

The purpose of this study is merely to review the current situation in the designing and implementation of the emission trading programs in Europe. Historical data show that although there is a series of shortcomings in their current functioning, employing such instruments for GHG reduction policy making is strongly expected to be efficient and effective. The European Union Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) are just a few examples of the ambitious EU initiative that heavily relies on such instruments. We dwell on their operations and achievements by far and all the content in this article is expected to convince the Chinese government and regional public authorities to take positive actions and attitudes in promoting these instruments.     

Environmental Capital,Negative Externality and Carbon Finance Innovation

Abstract

In the context of global climate change, the internalization of negative externality, which is brought about by the traditional mode of economic growth, has become an inevitable choice. In order to achieve the internalization, it is necessary to make innovations on the market mechanism and system, find the value of environmental capital, establish a new mode of economic growth based on environmental capital, and then transform the environmental capital, an exogenous factor of economic growth, into an endogenous factor. Of this, the key of market mechanism and system innovation is the financial innovation that is based on environmental capital and negative externality; the government defines the initial property right of environmental resources and establishes environment energy trading market, so as to guide enterprises to trade environmental resources (represented by carbon emission permit trading) based on the Clean Development Mechanism, and to vigorously develop environmental finance and carbon finance.     

Economic and Ecological Rules for Water Quality Trading1

Horan, Richard D. and James S. Shortle, 2011. Economic and Ecological Rules for Water Quality Trading. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(1):59‐69. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2010.00463.x Abstract: Emissions trading in textbook form uses markets to achieve pollution targets cost‐efficiently. This result is accomplished in markets that regulators can implement without knowing pollution abatement costs. The theoretical promise of emissions trading, along with real‐world success stories from air emissions trading, has led to initiatives to use trading for water pollution control. Yet, trading, particularly when it involves nonpoint sources of pollution, requires significant departures from the textbook concept. This paper explores how features of water quality problems affect the design of markets for water pollution control relative to textbook emissions markets. Three fundamental design tasks that regulators must address for pollution trading to achieve an environmental goal at low cost are examined: (1) defining the point and nonpoint commodities to be traded, (2) defining rules governing commodity exchange, and (3) setting caps on the commodity supplies so as to achieve an environmental target. We show that the way in which these tasks are optimally addressed for water quality markets differs significantly from the textbook model and its real‐world analogs. We also show that the fundamental appeal of emissions trading is lost in the case of realistic water quality markets, as market designs that reduce the costs of achieving water quality goals may no longer be implementable without the regulatory authority having information on abatement costs.     

Optimal Pollution Trading Without Pollution Reductions: A Note1

García, Jorge H., Matthew T. Heberling, and Hale W. Thurston, 2011. Optimal Pollution Trading Without Pollution Reductions: A Note. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(1):52‐58. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2010.00476.x Abstract: Various kinds of water pollution occur in pulses (e.g., agricultural and urban runoff). Ecosystems, such as wetlands, can serve to regulate these pulses and smooth pollution distributions over time. This smoothing reduces total environmental damages when “instantaneous” damages are marginally increasing. This paper introduces a water quality trading model between a farm (a pulse‐pollution source) and a firm (a more steady pollution source) where the object of exchange is the “temporary” retention of runoff as opposed to total runoff reductions. The optimal trading ratio requires firm emissions to be offset by more than a proportional retention of the initial agricultural runoff pulse. The reason is twofold: (1) emissions are steady or constant over time and, in this sense, have relatively larger environmental impact; and (2) certain kinds of runoff management cause delayed environmental damages.