Can decentralized planning really achieve first-best in the presence of environmental spillovers?

It is generally accepted that decentralized policy choice in the presence of interjurisdictional spillovers is inefficient. Strikingly, Ogawa and Wildasin (2009) find that in a model with heterogenous jurisdictions, interjurisdictional capital flows, and interjurisdictional environmental damage spillovers, decentralized planning outcomes are equivalent to that under a centralized planner. We first show the critical importance of two key assumptions (no retirement of capital, fixed environmental damages per unit of capital) in obtaining this result. Second, we consider a more general model allowing for capital retirement and abatement activities and show that the outcome of a decentralized market generally differs from the solution of a centralized planner?s social welfare-maximizing problem.     

Carbon leakage: Grandfathering as an incentive device to avert firm relocation

Emission allowances are sometimes distributed for free in an early phase of a cap-and-trade scheme to reduce adverse effects on the profitability of firms. This paper investigates whether grandfathering can also be used to avert the relocation of firms to countries with lower carbon prices. We show that under certain conditions, relocation can be averted in the long run, even if the grandfathering scheme is phased out over time and immediate relocation is profitable in its absence. This requires that the permit price triggers sufficient investments into low-carbon technologies or abatement capital that create a lock-in effect which makes relocation unprofitable.     

The optimal time path of clean energy R&D policy when patents have finite lifetime

We study the optimal time path for clean energy innovation policy. In a model with emission reduction through clean energy deployment, and with R&D increasing the overall productivity of clean energy, we describe optimal R&D policies jointly with emission pricing policies. We find that while emission prices can be set at the Pigouvian level independently of innovation policy, the optimal level of R&D subsidies and patent lifetime change with the stages of the climate problem. In the early stages of clean energy development, innovators find it more difficult to capture the social value of their innovations. Thus, for a given finite patent lifetime, optimal clean energy R&D subsidies are initially high, but then fall over time. Alternatively, if research subsidies are kept constant, the optimal patent lifetime should initially be long and fall over time.     

Valuing floodplain protection and avoidance in a coastal watershed

Flood‐related losses in the United States are increasing despite large‐scale mitigation efforts. To offset the rising cost of floods, the US Congress passed legislation in 2014 that will augment insurance premiums to make the National Flood Insurance Program more actuarially sound. Consequently, there is interest in lowering flood‐related costs to the homeowner, both in terms of premiums and damage. This study addresses the issue by integrating premium savings and damages avoided based on several mitigation scenarios. Specifically, it examines how much policyholders within a watershed near Houston, Texas, could have saved between 1999 and 2009 had their communities introduced specific avoidance‐based mitigation activities. The results indicate that homeowners and communities can offset premium rises and a majority of the damage suffered through marginal expansions of such initiatives. However, the costs associated with their implementation could counter some of these savings, and hence they need to be considered in future work.     

The social cost of carbon revisited

An estimate of the social cost of carbon (SCC) is crucial to climate policy. But how should we estimate the SCC? A common approach uses an integrated assessment model (IAM) to simulate time paths for the atmospheric CO₂ concentration, its impact on temperature, and resulting reductions in GDP. I have argued that IAMs have deficiencies that make them poorly suited for this job, but what is the alternative? I present an approach to estimating an average SCC, which I argue can be a useful guide for policy. I rely on a survey of experts to elicit opinions regarding (1) probabilities of alternative economic outcomes of climate change, but not the causes of those outcomes; and (2) the reduction in emissions required to avert an extreme outcome, i.e., a large climate-induced reduction in GDP. The average SCC is the ratio of the present value of lost GDP from an extreme outcome to the total emission reduction needed to avert that outcome. I discuss the survey instrument, explain how experts were identified, and present results. I obtain SCC estimates of $200/mt or higher, but the variation across experts is large. Trimming outliers and focusing on experts who expressed a high degree of confidence in their answers yields lower SCCs, $80 to $100/mt, but still well above the IAM-based estimates used by the U.S. government.     

碳中和目标下的北京城市道路移动源CO2和大气污染物协同减排效应研究

为实现2060年碳中和目标,研究北京城市道路移动源CO_2和大气污染物(CO、NO_x、PM_(2.5))的协同减排效应。本文以2016年为基准年,建立CO_2和大气污染物排放量的LEAP模型,设计三种政策情景,预测到2060年各类污染物排放量,并通过减排效应坐标系分析和减排弹性系数法研究不同措施下CO_2和大气污染物的协同减排效应。结果显示,综合政策情景的减排作用最好,且协同减排效应最显著,但在2060年无法实现碳中和目标;单一措施情景下,严格排放标准措施的协同减排效果有限,但对各污染物的减排协同性最优,推广公共交通减排协同性次之,发展新能源车辆措施具有较好的协同减排效果,但对CO_2—CO和CO_2—PM_(2.5)的减排协同度较差。对此,本文提出应加快推动交通能源结构转型,在新能源车取代燃油类机动车的同时,要不断减少天然气类车型的比例,尽可能实现"电能+新能源汽车"的零排放能源结构;还要加严机动车排放标准限值以加强CO_2和大气污染物的减排协同度;制定相应的机动车CO_2和大气污染物协同排放限值标准目标,构建CO_2与大气污染物排放协同管理体系等建议。     

“大气十条”实施后大气污染协同治理政策的量化研究

针对大气污染问题,2013年国务院颁布了《大气污染防治行动计划》,从更高层次上实施国家及区域层面的大气污染协同治理战略。区域联合防控及协同治理是当前情况下治理好大气污染的必然选择,但是尚未形成完整的体系。收集整理了100篇大气污染协同治理相关政策文件,构建了政策工具量化的二维分析框架,探讨了当前对大气污染协同治理的政策工具使用情况,并针对性地提出了强化命令型政策工具、弥补能力型建设工具、完善奖惩福利机制、完善监督监测预警系统等一系列政策建议。     

山东省产业政策战略环境评价

战略环境影响评价(StrategicEnvironmentalAssessment,简称SEA)是环境影响评价在战略决策层次上的应用,是实现可持续发展战略的重要手段。首先阐述了产业政策SEA的内涵,分析论述了产业政策对环境的影响和山东省产业政策SEA的必要性,建立了山东省产业政策SEA的理论基础,最后提出了山东省产业政策SEA的初步研究框架。     

Focus and social contagion of environmental organization advocacy on Twitter

Agriculture, overexploitation, and urbanization remain the major threats to biodiversity in the Anthropocene. The attention these threats garner among leading environmental nongovernmental organizations (eNGOs) and the wider public is critical in fostering the political will necessary to reverse biodiversity declines worldwide. I analyzed the advocacy of leading eNGOs on Twitter by scraping account timelines, screening content for advocacy relating to biodiversity threats and, for prevalent threats, further screening content for positive and negative emotional language with a sentiment lexicon. Twitter advocacy was dominated by the major threats of climate change and overexploitation and the minor threat of plastic pollution. The major threats of agriculture, urbanization, invasions, and pollution were rarely addressed. Content relating to overexploitation and plastic pollution was more socially contagious than other content. Increasing emotional negativity further increased social contagion, whereas increasing emotional positivity did not. Scientists, policy makers, and eNGOs should consider how narrowly focused advocacy on platforms like Twitter will contribute to effective global biodiversity conservation.     

The bean method as a tool to measure sensitive behavior

Conservationists need to measure human behavior to guide decisions and evaluate their impact. However, activities can be misreported and reporting accuracy may change following conservation interventions, making it hard to verify any apparent changes. Techniques for asking sensitive questions are increasingly integrated into survey designs to improve data quality, but some can be costly or hard for nonexperts to implement. We demonstrate a straightforward, low-cost approach, the bean method in which respondents give anonymous answers by adding a colored bean to a jar to denote a yes or no response. We applied the bean method to measure wild-meat hunting and trading over 2 years at a conservation-project (hunting reduction) site in Gola Forest, Liberia. We extended the technique to accommodate questions about hunting and meat-selling frequency. We compared responses given using the bean method and direct questioning for groups that did and did not participate in conservation interventions. Results from the bean method corresponded to those from direct questioning, and there was no indication of change in question sensitivity following conservation interventions. Estimates from both methods indicated that wild-meat trading decreased in project and nonproject households (from 36% to 20%) and that hunting decreased in 1 project group (38–28%). Where inconsistent answers were given (2–6% of respondents), differences were in both directions and were most likely attributable to measurement error. The bean method was quick and straightforward to administer in a low-literacy setting. We showed how it can be modified for answers of more than 2 categories and consider it a valuable tool that could be adapted for a wide range of conservation settings.