Issues in Designing U.S. Climate Change Policy

Joseph Aldy and William Pizer

The Energy Journal, 2009, vol. Volume 30, issue Number 3, 179-210

Abstract: Over the coming decades, the cost of U.S. climate change policy likely will be comparable to the total cost of all existing environmental regulationÑperhaps 1-2 percent of national income. In order to avoid higher costs, policy efforts should create incentives for firms and individuals to pursue the cheapest climate change mitigation options over time, among all sectors, across national borders, and in the face of significant uncertainty. Well-designed national greenhouse gas mitigation policies can serve as the foundation for global efforts and as an example for emerging and developing countries. We present six key policy design issues that will determine the costs, cost-effectiveness, and distributional impacts of domestic climate policy: program scope, cost containment, offsets, revenues and allowance allocation, competitiveness, and R&D policy. We synthesize the literature on these design features, review the implications for the ongoing policy debate, and identify outstanding research questions that can inform policy development.

JEL-codes: F0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejarticle.aspx?id=2334 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to IAEE members and subscribers.

Related works:
Journal Article: Issues in Designing U.S. Climate Change Policy (2009)
Working Paper: Issues in Designing U.S. Climate Change Policy (2008)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aen:journl:2009v30-03-a09

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.iaee.org/en/publications/ejsearch.aspx

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in The Energy Journal from International Association for Energy Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by David Williams ().