THE ROLE OF INFORMATION DISCLOSURE IN CLIMATE MITIGATION POLICY
Mark Cohen and
W Viscusi
Climate Change Economics (CCE), 2012, vol. 03, issue 04, 1-21
Abstract:
Information disclosure policies represent an additional policy mechanism that can be used to foster reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These informational efforts could be either mandatory or voluntary, but in each case government regulation could play a productive role by establishing common structures for the information and providing criteria to ensure the accuracy and credibility of the information. Unlike most previous uses of environmental information disclosure, such as the Toxic Release Inventory and pesticide warnings, carbon footprint labeling does not communicate information about immediate private benefits. While considerable insight can be gleaned by examining the principles for effective warnings generally, additional research would further our understanding of how to best design a successful information effort directed at varied future environmental benefits. Care is needed as green labeling may distort consumer decisions if undue prominence is given to environmental consequences as compared to other valued attributes, such as safety.
Keywords: Information disclosure; carbon labels; greenhouse gas mitigation; green labeling; warnings (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2010007812500200
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
Related works:
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:wsi:ccexxx:v:03:y:2012:i:04:n:s2010007812500200
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
DOI: 10.1142/S2010007812500200
Access Statistics for this article
Climate Change Economics (CCE) is currently edited by Robert Mendelsohn
More articles in Climate Change Economics (CCE) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().