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ID:
085442
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2008.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The assignment of obligations to pay for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and for adaptation to unavoidable climate change is a critical and controversial component of international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In this article we present a new framework called 'Greenhouse Development Rights' (GDRs): a formula for the calculation of national obligations on the basis of quantified capacity (wealth) and responsibility (contribution to climate change). GDRs seek to preserve the 'right to development' by exempting from obligation any income and emissions under a 'development threshold'. By taking into account the distribution of income and emissions within countries, and calculating national obligations as if they were the aggregated obligations of individuals, the framework treats every global citizen identically, and allocates obligations even to poor countries that are proportional to their actual middle-class and wealthy populations. When coupled to a trajectory of rapid emissions reductions (for example, 80 per cent reduction below 1990 levels by 2050), the framework results in larger reduction obligations for both rich and poor countries than they currently seem prepared to accept. However, the formula may be 'fair enough' to break the impasse that currently separates rich and poor countries in the negotiations.
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| 2 |
ID:
117242
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Improving the energy economics of manufacturing is essential to revitalizing the industrial base of advanced economies. This paper evaluates ex-ante a federal policy option aimed at promoting industrial cogeneration-the production of heat and electricity in a single energy-efficient process. Detailed analysis using the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS) and spreadsheet calculations suggest that industrial cogeneration could meet 18% of U.S. electricity requirements by 2035, compared with its current 8.9% market share. Substituting less efficient utility-scale power plants with cogeneration systems would produce numerous economic and environmental benefits, but would also create an assortment of losers and winners. Multiple perspectives to benefit/cost analysis are therefore valuable. Our results indicate that the federal cogeneration policy would be highly favorable to manufacturers and the public sector, cutting energy bills, generating billions of dollars in electricity sales, making producers more competitive, and reducing pollution. Most traditional utilities, on the other hand, would lose revenues unless their rate recovery procedures are adjusted to prevent the loss of profits due to customer owned generation and the erosion of utility sales. From a public policy perspective, deadweight losses would be introduced by market-distorting federal incentives (ranging annually from $30 to $150 million), but these losses are much smaller than the estimated net social benefits of the federal cogeneration policy.
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