[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/isu/genstf/201710010700001659.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Steering the Climate System: Using Inertia to Lower the Cost of Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Lemoine, Derek
  • Rudik, Ivan
Abstract
Common views hold that the efficient way to limit warming to a chosen level is to price carbon emissions at a rate that increases exponentially. We show that this Hotelling tax on carbon emissions is actually inefficient. The least-cost policy path takes advantage of the climate system's inertia to delay reducing emissions and allow greater cumulative emissions. The efficient carbon tax follows an inverse-U-shaped path and grows more slowly than the Hotelling tax. Economic models that assume exponentially increasing carbon taxes are overestimating the cost of limiting warming, overestimating the efficient near-term carbon tax, and overvaluing technologies that mature sooner.

Suggested Citation

  • Lemoine, Derek & Rudik, Ivan, 2017. "Steering the Climate System: Using Inertia to Lower the Cost of Policy," ISU General Staff Papers 201710010700001659, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:201710010700001659
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dr.lib.iastate.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/d1e669f6-e9a2-4ef2-881a-dacac583916d/content
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nordhaus, William, 1982. "How Fast Should We Graze the Global Commons?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 242-246, May.
    2. Harold Hotelling, 1931. "The Economics of Exhaustible Resources," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 137-137.
    3. Mikhail Golosov & John Hassler & Per Krusell & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2014. "Optimal Taxes on Fossil Fuel in General Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(1), pages 41-88, January.
    4. Ottmar Edenhofer & Brigitte Knopf & Terry Barker & Lavinia Baumstark & Elie Bellevrat & Bertrand Chateau & Patrick Criqui & Morna Isaac & Alban Kitous & Socrates Kypreos & Marian Leimbach & Kai Lessma, 2010. "The Economics of Low Stabilization: Model Comparison of Mitigation Strategies and Costs," The Energy Journal, , vol. 31(1_suppl), pages 11-48, June.
    5. Goulder, Lawrence H. & Mathai, Koshy, 2000. "Optimal CO2 Abatement in the Presence of Induced Technological Change," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 1-38, January.
    6. Nordhaus, William D, 1991. "To Slow or Not to Slow: The Economics of the Greenhouse Effect," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(407), pages 920-937, July.
    7. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    8. Ottmar Edenhofer , Brigitte Knopf, Terry Barker, Lavinia Baumstark, Elie Bellevrat, Bertrand Chateau, Patrick Criqui, Morna Isaac, Alban Kitous, Socrates Kypreos, Marian Leimbach, Kai Lessmann, Bertra, 2010. "The Economics of Low Stabilization: Model Comparison of Mitigation Strategies and Costs," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Special I).
    9. Allison Thomson & Katherine Calvin & Steven Smith & G. Kyle & April Volke & Pralit Patel & Sabrina Delgado-Arias & Ben Bond-Lamberty & Marshall Wise & Leon Clarke & James Edmonds, 2011. "RCP4.5: a pathway for stabilization of radiative forcing by 2100," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(1), pages 77-94, November.
    10. William D. Nordhaus, 1980. "Thinking About Carbon Dioxide: Theoretical and Empirical Aspects of Optimal Control Strategies," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 565, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richard S J Tol, 2018. "The Economic Impacts of Climate Change," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 4-25.
    2. Richard S.J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have not changed over time," Working Paper Series 0821, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    3. Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Janda, Karel & Zilberman, David, 2015. "Selective reporting and the social cost of carbon," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 394-406.
    4. Tol, Richard S.J., 2017. "The structure of the climate debate," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 431-438.
    5. Frederick Ploeg, 2018. "The safe carbon budget," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 47-59, March.
    6. Frederick Ploeg & Armon Rezai, 2019. "Simple Rules for Climate Policy and Integrated Assessment," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 72(1), pages 77-108, January.
    7. Richard S.J. Tol, 2018. "The impact of climate change and the social cost of carbon," Working Paper Series 1318, Department of Economics, University of Sussex Business School.
    8. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "Targets for global climate policy: An overview," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 911-928.
    9. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "Estimates of the social cost of carbon have increased over time," Papers 2105.03656, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2022.
    10. Lint Barrage, 2019. "The Nobel Memorial Prize for William D. Nordhaus," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 121(3), pages 884-924, July.
    11. Dietz, Simon & Gollier, Christian & Kessler, Louise, 2018. "The climate beta," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 258-274.
    12. Agliardi, Elettra & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2022. "Temperature targets, deep uncertainty and extreme events in the design of optimal climate policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Lennox, James A. & Witajewski-Baltvilks, Jan, 2017. "Directed technical change with capital-embodied technologies: Implications for climate policy," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 400-409.
    14. Favero, Alice & Mendelsohn, Robert & Sohngen, Brent, 2016. "Carbon Storage and Bioenergy: Using Forests for Climate Mitigation," MITP: Mitigation, Innovation and Transformation Pathways 232215, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    15. Ottmar Edenhofer & Susanne Kadner & Christoph von Stechow & Gregor Schwerhoff & Gunnar Luderer, 2014. "Linking climate change mitigation research to sustainable development," Chapters, in: Giles Atkinson & Simon Dietz & Eric Neumayer & Matthew Agarwala (ed.), Handbook of Sustainable Development, chapter 30, pages 476-499, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Tol, Richard S.J., 2019. "A social cost of carbon for (almost) every country," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 555-566.
    17. Kalkuhl, Matthias & Edenhofer, Ottmar & Lessmann, Kai, 2012. "Learning or lock-in: Optimal technology policies to support mitigation," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 1-23.
    18. Bovenberg, A. Lans & Goulder, Lawrence H., 2002. "Environmental taxation and regulation," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1471-1545, Elsevier.
    19. Li, Xin, 2014. "The Demographic Structure and Export Strategy in Emerging Economies," Conference papers 332502, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:isu:genstf:201710010700001659. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Curtis Balmer (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deiasus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.