Carbon adjustment mechanisms: Empirics, design and caveats
Niklas Garnadt,
Veronika Grimm and
Wolf Heinrich Reuter
No 11/2020, Working Papers from German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung
Abstract:
This article explores the design of Carbon Adjustment Mechanisms based on an analysis of historical data, the existing literature as well as theoretical considerations. In the empirical analysis we quantify territorial emissions as compared to the CO2 footprints for countries within the EU-ETS area and globally, we show which (mostly upstream) industries account for the majority of emissions, and identify how their emissions are imported embedded in final or intermediate products from more downstream industries. In an analysis based on gravity equations, we find evidence for carbon leakage in some emission-intensive industries, but only small overall effects. Based on our own evidence and the current literature, we conclude that - if a Carbon Adjustment Mechanism is to be established - focusing on emissions intensive industries could balance excessive bureaucratic burden and carbon leakage mitigation. To be effective, such a system should also extend to embedded emissions in downstream industries to avoid a shift of imports down the value chain. Concerns with regard to international trade relations could be addressed by not implementing Carbon Adjustment Mechanisms unilaterally, but rather using them as the basis for a cooperative approach to climate protection jointly with the most important trading partners.
Keywords: Carbon border adjustment; Carbon leakage; Carbon tax; Climate policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 F18 F55 F64 Q53 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ene, nep-env and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/228777/1/1745588760.pdf (application/pdf)
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:zbw:svrwwp:112020
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Papers from German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().